Agriculture exports reached US$410 million in September, up 16.22 percent from the same month last year, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data show. Indonesia’s overall exports, meanwhile, were down just 0.5 percent year-on-year (yoy) at $14.01 billion.

“[The agriculture exports] started to pick up in September,” Trade Ministry’s national exports development director general, Kasan Muhri, said in a virtual discussion on Monday. “This is a very good record.”

The government is trying to keep Indonesia’s trade afloat amid the COVID-19 pandemic that is estimated by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to shrink global trade by between 13 and 32 percent this year.

Indonesia has pocketed a $13.51 billion trade surplus so far this year as of September, because imports fell more than exports, BPS data show. The net export anchored the country’s economy in the second quarter, when all other gross domestic product (GDP) components shrank.

Indonesia’s GDP contracted 5.32 percent yoy in the second quarter as household spending and investment plunged due to the coronavirus outbreak. The agriculture sector, meanwhile, managed to record growth as other sectors shrank.

While contributing only 2.4 percent to the country’s total exports in the January-September period, agriculture shipments booked annual growth of 9.7 percent in value at $2.82 billion, BPS data show. It also become the only sector recording an expansion over that period as oil and gas, manufacturing, mining and all other sectors contracted on an annual basis.

Popular

Batam residents protest data centers amid water crisis

Recentralization concerns in fiscal, education heighten

Popular discontent is justified. Authoritarianism is not the answer