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Exports, imports fall in September as trade slows down
Statistics Indonesia (BPS) reported that exports grew by 47.64 percent year-on-year (yoy) and imports by 40.31 percent yoy in September, which were slower than a month earlier
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Core commodity: Workers load palm fruit bunches to be processed into crude palm oil and kernel for export at PT Indo Sawit Subur Riau’s factory. (JP/Ricky Yudhistira)
I
ndonesia booked a slowdown in exports in September as demand for its commodities fell. Imports and the trade surplus also slowed. The slowdown came after the country posted a record-breaking trade surplus and exports in August.
In trade figures published on Friday, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) reported exports worth US$20.60 billion for the month of September. While that is up 47.64 percent year-on-year (yoy) following the drastic decline in trade in the early period of the coronavirus pandemic, it marks a slowdown from the 64.1 percent annual growth logged in August.
Imports were up 40.31 percent yoy at $16.23 billion in September, also slower than the 55.26 percent annual growth seen in August.
This resulted in a trade surplus of $4.37 billion, down 8 percent from the record-breaking figure recorded in August.
“The value [of non-oil and gas] exports fell 3.38 percent [month-to-month],” BPS head Margo Yuwono said in an online press briefing on Friday, adding that the decrease was driven by lower volumes of exports rather than by lower prices. “This means there was a fall in demand from trade partners.”
Non-oil and gas goods accounted for some 95 percent of Indonesia’s exports in September.
The slowdown follows record exports in August, when Indonesia reaped the benefits of the global economic recovery and rising prices of commodities, especially coal, the country’s main export commodity.
