8 August 2025 (closed)
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Latest Reports Trade Balance
On Monday (August 4, 2025) Indonesia Investments released the July 2025 edition of its monthly report. The latest edition is titled "An Evolving Trade Landscape". This title obviously refers to the trade agreements between Indonesia, the United States (US) and the European Union (EU).
In the present, it has become particularly interesting to take a look at trade flows as the US import tariffs (announced by President Donald Trump on 2 April 2025) could cause the restructuring, or reshaping, of international trade.
In July 2024, Indonesia saw its narrowest trade surplus since May 2023 as imports rebounded quite impressively. Fortunately, Indonesian exports also performed well in July 2024. If not, it would have meant an end to Indonesia’s trade surplus streak that has been ongoing for 51 successive months.
Although the trade performance of Indonesia was not as good as one month earlier, it is positive that its exports and imports experienced an increase (in value) in June 2024 compared to the same month one year ago.
Before we discuss Indonesia’s May 2024 trade data, we first need to go back to the previous month as Indonesia’s Statistical Agency (Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS) made a significant revision to the country’s April 2024 import data.
Indonesia enjoyed another great USD $3.56 billion trade surplus in April 2024. But unfortunately the nation’s exports and imports both dropped on a month-on-month (m/m) basis. However, that was in line with our expectations as trade was disrupted by the end of the Ramadan month and the subsequent Idul Fitri celebrations (which meant a week-long holiday for Indonesia).
Indonesia collected a USD $2.01 billion trade surplus in January 2024, which is the smallest surplus in six months (July 2023) for Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Key reason is that Indonesia’s non-oil and gas exports showed a relatively steep decline compared to non-oil and gas exports in the preceding month and in the same month one year earlier. So, Indonesia’s export performance remains under some pressure.
Although Indonesia enjoyed another comfortable trade surplus in November 2023, the surplus ranks among its weakest in 2023 as exports dipped, while imports were rather stable. The latest trade surplus, which is the country’s 43rd consecutive trade surplus, reached a value of USD $2.41 billion.
Indonesia posted a strong USD $3.12 billion trade surplus in August 2023. It is the 40th consecutive month of trade surpluses for Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, an indication that global commodity prices (particularly coal and palm oil, which are the key non-oil and gas export items of Indonesia) remain at lucrative levels.
In July 2023 we saw a relatively modest trade surplus for Indonesia at USD $1.31 billion, down heavily from USD $3.45 billion in the previous month when it was the weak import performance that allowed Southeast Asia’s largest economy to enjoy a wide trade surplus.
Latest Columns Trade Balance
Since his return into the White House, US President Donald Trump has made a series of decisions and expressed a number of threats that have the potential for disrupting Indonesia’s trade performance, and thus undermining Indonesia’s economic growth.
Based on the latest data from Indonesia’s Statistical Agency (BPS), Indonesia’s trade balance showed a surplus of USD $4.42 billion in November 2024. It was the second-biggest trade surplus so far in 2024 (after March), with one more month to go.
Last month we warned that Indonesia’s trade performance could easily continue to contract in February 2023, thereby continuing the trend we have seen since August 2022. Moreover, February is a short month, and therefore it typically has trouble to compete with other months in terms of trade activity.
Both Indonesia’s export and import performance was quite amazing in March 2022. While we expected imports to rebound ahead of the start of the Ramadan month (on 1 April 2022), a month that typically gives rise to a big increase in consumption, we did underestimate Indonesia’s export performance in last month’s forecast.
According to the latest data from Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik, or BPS), Indonesia posted a USD $4.37 billion trade surplus in September 2021. It is a slightly lower surplus compared to the previous month (when Indonesia posted its highest ever monthly trade surplus), but remains one of the highest surpluses in the history of Indonesia.
Indonesia recorded another big trade surplus in July 2020. Based on the latest data from Indonesia’s Statistical Agency (BPS), the country's trade surplus reached USD $3.26 billion in July 2020, a huge improvement from the USD $280.1 million deficit it recorded in the same month one year earlier.
For the second consecutive month Indonesia recorded a big trade surplus. According to the latest data from Indonesia’s Statistical Agency (BPS), the country posted a USD $1.27 billion trade surplus in June 2020.
In line with estimates, Indonesia’s trade balance showed another deficit in January 2020. Based on the latest data from Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik, or BPS), a USD $864.2 million trade deficit was recorded in the first month of the year.
While many are relieved to see a trade surplus for Indonesia in August 2019, the picture does not look too positive when we delve a bit deeper in the data, and shows that global conditions are far from positive amid contracting international trade and subdued global economic growth (with ongoing tariff tensions between the United States and China being a key issue).
Based on the latest data from Indonesia’s Statistical Agency (BPS), Indonesia recorded a USD $227.1 million trade surplus in September 2018. Although it is a very small surplus, it did lead to some optimism. After all, Indonesia had recorded big monthly trade deficits of USD $2.0 billion and USD $944.2 million in July 2018 and August 2018, respectively.
