November Trade Balance Indonesia: "Spectacular" Export Growth
Indonesia's Statistics Agency (BPS) announced on Thursday (15/12) that the nation's export performance in November 2016 showed a sharp increase. Sasmito Hadi Wibowo, Deputy for Statistics Distribution and Services at BPS, said Indonesia's export growth was "rather spectacular" and gives rise to optimism that global demand and trade have improved. In November Indonesia posted a USD $838 million trade surplus, down from the revised USD $1.24 billion in the preceding month. In all of the first eleven months of 2016, Indonesia recorded a trade surplus.
Exports from Indonesia surged 21.3 percent year-on-year (y/y) to USD $13.5 billion in November 2016, from USD $12.7 billion in the same month one year earlier (by far exceeding analysts' expectations). Wibowo is not only content to see this sharp jump in November exports, but he also emphasized that it is a positive development to see Indonesia's export performance improving gradually in each month since January 2016.
The export performance of Indonesia in November 2016 was supported by rising commodity prices such as crude palm oil (CPO) and its derivatives as well as coal and copper rose. However, shipments not only rose in terms of value but also in terms of volume (implying strengthening external demand).
Data show that non-oil & gas exports to China accounted for the biggest portion of total shipments from Indonesia in November 2016. In total, Indonesia exported USD $1.81 billion (worth of non-oil & gas products) to China, followed by the United States (USD $1.33 billion) and Japan (USD $1.30 billion).
In the first 11 months of 2016 Indonesia's export value totaled USD $130.65 billion, down 5.63 percent (y/y) from the nation's export value in the same period one year earlier.
Meanwhile, contraction of imports into Indonesia finally ended in November 2016 after a 24-month losing streak. Indonesia's imports totaled USD $12.66 billion in November 2016, up 9.9 percent (y/y) and up 10.0 percent on a month-on-month basis, particularly supported by rising machinery imports.
Trade Balance of Indonesia:
