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Trade surplus to narrow in 2022 as commodity prices normalize
Indonesia will likely continue to export more goods than it imports in 2022, though the surplus will not be as big as last year, economists have forecast, as supply rises and supply chains improve.
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Afloat: Coal barges queue to be pulled along the Mahakam River in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, on Aug. 31, 2019. Booming prices for primary commodities like coal buoyed Indonesian exports in 2021. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
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ndonesia may not see in 2022 a trade surplus as large as in the past two years, as commodity prices are expected retreat from unusually high levels.
The country’s goods trade surplus in the January-to-November period of 2021 reached US$34.32 billion, 58.74 percent higher than the surplus seen in the entire 2020, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data show.
Surging commodity prices drove the unusually large trade surplus during the pandemic as exports relied on resources like coal, crude palm oil (CPO), nickel and copper.
However, commodity prices are expected to be lower this year than in 2021, according to economists at publicly listed state-owned lender Bank Mandiri.
“We believe the trade surplus will tend to narrow in 2022,” Bank Mandiri economist Faisal Rachman said on Tuesday. “But if the imbalance in the global recovery persists, there is still a chance that prices will remain high.”
Commodity prices are expected to normalize this year as a result of rising supply, according to the economists, even as domestic consumption and raw material imports are projected to pick up as the national economy recovers.
Newcastle coal futures, for example, have shown signs of normalizing after peaking at $269.50 per ton on Oct. 5, 2021, according to data published by economic data provider Trading Economics.
