Data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) on Friday showed the economy posted a US$900.2 million (Bt31.5 billion) trade surplus last month, significantly higher than the $375.6 million recorded the previous month, thanks to balanced growth between imports and exports.

However, June saw a 4.4-per-cent drop in exports year-on-year to $12.92 billion from $13.51 billion in the same month last year.

The country saw a 35.0-per-cent year-on-year drop for exports in the January-June period after shipping $69.5 billion worth of goods and services so far this year.

BPS head Suryamin emphasised that despite the cumulative drop, demand for oil and gas had been slowly increasing, as conveyed by the volume of oil and gas exported, which reached 22.3 million tonnes in the first half of the year from 21.9 million tonnes recorded in the same half last year. “Global oil prices are slowly increasing and it is affecting our exports, which can also be seen in the volume,” he told a press conference. The mining sector also saw a January-June 23.7-per-cent year-on-year drop in exports to $7.88 billion.

Exports of agricultural goods dropped 18.1 per cent, while exports of manufactured goods dropped 4.7 per cent. However, the percentage of manufactured goods made up exports increased to 77.3 per cent from 71.9 per cent.

Total imports from January-June dropped 7.4 per cent year-on-year to $12.02 billion. Imports of capital goods dropped 15.3 per cent and raw and auxiliary goods 12.2 per cent.

However, consumer goods rose 13.6 per cent compared to last year.

The country saw a $3.59 billion trade surplus from January-June, down 19.8 per cent.

Trade Minister Thomas Lembong predicted international trade would experience a decrease through the rest of the year.

Targeted contraction

“However, our targeted contraction is not as big as last year’s, in which exports and imports decreased by 14 to 17 per cent.

“We hope [this year’s] trade contraction will remain in the single digits, below 10 per cent,” he said. The global condition was still extremely difficult, he said.

Centre of Reforms in Economics Indonesia research director Mohammad Faisal noted that the continuing decrease in surplus year-on-year indicated that the global economic slowdown due to low demand in commodities still negatively affected the country’s exports.

“Our manufactured goods should be able to make up for the drop in commodity exports. However, this has not happened,” he said.

The government should move to focus on manufacturing, as the country could no longer rely on commodity exports since prices remained volatile and hard to control, he said.