Indonesia Lesu Exports And Imports Ahead Of Ramadan, What's Up?

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported that there was a decrease in the value of exports and imports during February 2023.

Deputy for Statistics Distribution of BPS Habibullah revealed that the export value fell to 21.4 billion US dollars in February from the previous 22.3 billion US dollars in January.

"Likewise, imports have decreased to 15.9 billion US dollars from the previous 18.4 billion US dollars," he said during a press conference on Wednesday, March 15.

According to Habibullah, this cannot be separated from the seasonal factors of the beginning of the year recorded by BPS.

"Indeed, for February there is usually a decline in both exports and imports," he said.

Habibullah explained that although foreign trade activities experienced fatigue, Indonesia was quite lucky because export supply was no deeper than imports.

He said, Indonesia's exports collapsed by minus 4.1 percent month to month (mtm). Meanwhile, imports contracted by minus 13 percent mtm.

As a result, Indonesia's trade balance remains on a positive track by making a surplus of 5.4 billion US dollars.

"This trade balance surplus is fairly good because it occurs in the midst of a much larger decline in imports compared to the decline in exports," he said.

For information, this BPS minutes were released less than one month before the Ramadan period which is expected to fall on March 21/22.

Related to this, Habibullah believes that foreign commercial activities will revive the high number of public consumption. In fact, it is possible that there will be a demand fluctuation that will increase to double digits.

"Because there are indeed several commodities related to Ramadan, especially for live animals, the imports are indeed rising. Some of these live animals are cattle, including cows, which if they increase 10 times, we must first look at the data," he explained.

For information, Indonesia's exports have continued to decline since August 2022, which at that time amounted to 27.8 billion US dollars.

Meanwhile, the import value has fallen since December 2022 with a record at that time of 19.8 billion US dollars.