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ndonesia'€™s trade balance turned back into a surplus position last year after three straight years of deficits, with overall trade activity remaining weak as both full-year exports and imports kept declining, the government'€™s latest data has shown.

The country'€™s total exports declined by 14.62 percent year-on-year (yoy) to US$150.25 billion last year and its imports plunged by 19.9 percent to $142.74 billion, making it book a trade surplus of $7.51 billion in 2015, data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has revealed.

BPS head Suryamin said Friday that the trade surplus recorded last year was the first-ever after three-year drought, but remained lower than a surplus of $26.06 billion in 2011.

'€œThe declines [in surplus value] were more due to [a commodity] price slump over the full year. In terms of export volumes, they actually increased or stagnated, except for mining commodities,'€ he said in a press briefing.

Oil and gas exports declined by 38.2 percent yoy to $18.55 billion in 2015 as oil prices continued plunging during the year and hit a 12-year low at around $30 a barrel in recent days.

Similarly, a yoy price slump of crude palm oil (CPO), which is one of Indonesia'€™s main commodities, dragged Indonesia'€™s non-oil and gas exports down to $131.7 billion last year from $145.96 billion in 2014.

Institute Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) economist Enny Sri Hartati argued that the country'€™s 2015 trade balance was not yet satisfactory.

'€œOur full-year surplus was caused by a sharper decline of imports than of exports,'€ she said.

Meanwhile in December alone, Indonesia'€™s total exports and imports started picking up by 6.98 percent and 5.23 percent, respectively, from November.

The rising exports in December were due to the increasing prices of nine Indonesian commodities, like CPO, rubber and soybeans, during the month, according to Suryamin.

The increasing exports, however, remained very low compared to December'€™s exports in 2014, making the trade balance hit a $235.8 million deficit in December last year.

Singapore-based Barclays senior regional economist Wai Ho Leong stated that while the weakness in exports remains broad-based, a faster pace of public investment and private consumption was reflected in higher-than-expected imports in December last year.

BPS data has shown that non-oil and gas imports rose by 4.5 percent to $10.32 billion in December from $9.88 billion in November, mostly because of rising imports of capital goods like machines and mechanical equipment.

'€œWe continue to expect a sequential improvement in growth from the fourth quarter that extends well into 2016, supported by accelerated government disbursements on infrastructure projects and, increasingly, monetary policy stimulus,'€ he said.

Indef'€™s Enny said that the country needed to also develop its non-CPO commodities that had considerable market shares to keep boosting its exports this year, while imports were expected to keep rising as driven by continued government spending.

Voicing a similar view, Samuel Sekuritas economist Lana Soelistianingsih said that the country should not solely rely on CPO to increase exports because CPO prices fluctuated.

Tassia Sipahutar contributed to this story