Ministry Of Trade Doubts Export Transaction Values 2023 Will Be As High As Last Year

Director General of National Export Development of the Ministry of Trade Didi Sumedi. (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) revealed that Indonesia's exports of Indonesia are still strong.

Even so, the Ministry of Trade does not guarantee that the value of this year's export transactions will be much higher than in 2022.

Director General of National Export Development of the Ministry of Trade Didi Sumedi said the cumulative value of Indonesia's exports in January-October 2023 reached 244 billion US dollars. Meanwhile, non-oil and gas exports reached 230 billion US dollars.

Didi said the value had indeed decreased compared to last year. However, Didi claimed that Indonesia still has export power.

This can be seen from the volume of exports that continue to experience growth.

"The increase compared to the same period last year was 7 percent. So last year's January-October 534 million tons of volume. Now, 579 tons if I am accumulating 7 percent. So the export is still strong," said Didi at the Ministry of Trade, Jakarta, Wednesday, December 20.

Even so, Didi admitted that he could not guarantee that the value of export transactions until the end of this year would be much higher than last year.

The reason is, the trend of prices for a number of commodities in the international market has decreased

"Indeed, we do not guarantee that it can reach last year, yes, because last year's profit was quite large. Especially at coal prices (coal), CPO and several commodities based on products are still high in price, now this is slowing down on their prices," he explained.

Not only that, Didi also said that the pressure on the rupiah exchange rate was sufficient to affect the export value this year.

Moreover, he said, from January to October the rupiah exchange rate continued to weaken.

"Then this rupiah pressure will also affect the one this year. So we are analogous that last year we could sell 1 unit for example, this year, during January-October it will not reach 1 dollar we can sell, maybe only 0.8 dollars. So that's what makes the cumulative export value decrease," he said.