Southeast Asia’s largest economy recorded US$13.07 billion in exports in August, down 4.62 percent compared to July and down 8.34 percent annually, as the pandemic upended global demand, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Tuesday. The country recorded month-on-month (mom) export growth in June and July after contractions in April and May, during which Indonesia implemented strict movement restrictions.

Exports of oil and gas products fell 27.4 percent year-on-year (yoy) to around $610 million in August, while exports of mining products decreased 24.7 percent yoy to $1.39 billion due to falling commodity prices.

At the same time, shipments of agriculture products rose 1.04 percent yoy to $340 million as manufactured goods exports dropped 4.5 percent to $10.37 billion in August.

“Indonesia’s total exports dropped due to slowing global economic activity, while demand from our trading partners was still weak compared to previous years,” BPS head Suhariyanto told reporters in an online press briefing on Tuesday.

The health crisis has hit the world’s economy, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projecting the global economy to shrink 4.9 percent this year from growth of around 3 percent in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced some countries to implement lockdown measures that disrupt business activity and supply chains in an effort to curb the coronavirus spread, resulting in economic recession in countries from Singapore and Japan to Germany and the United States.

IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said in a column co-authored with chief economist Gita Gopinath on Sept. 9 that the global economy was showing signs of bouncing back from the severe downturn caused by the pandemic, but a full recovery was "unlikely" without a vaccine.

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