Trade Balance Surplus, US And India Become The Largest Contributing Countries

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said that throughout 2023, Indonesia's international trade balance surplus on aggregate reached 36.93 billion US dollars and continued the surplus trend in the last 4 years.

The impressive performance of the trade balance cannot be separated from the maintenance of Indonesia's export performance amidst the slowdown in the global economy, commodity price fluctuations, and geo-political turmoil that will color 2023.

Airlangga said export performance throughout 2023 reached 258.82 billion US dollars, still higher than the import value of 221.89 billion US dollars.

On the other hand, India and the United States are the 2 largest surplus contributor countries for 2023 with a surplus value of 14.51 billion US dollars and 14.01 billion US dollars, respectively.

Airlangga said Indonesia had even succeeded in breaking the consistency of the trade balance deficit with China since 2008 and managed to record a surplus of 2.06 billion US dollars for 2023.

Indonesia's exports to China for 2023 reached US$64.94 billion with the main export commodities, namely iron and steel, coal, palm oil, and nickel products.

During the period January to November 2023, exports of Indonesian nickel products were able to set a record high of 4.5 billion US dollars in line with the Government's incessant downstream policy in recent years.

"Tradiation performance is also good in terms of positive exports. We are even positive with China. Well, this is certainly the result of downstreaming policies. And we do not imagine that at the point in 2023 we can be positive with China," said Airlangga in his official statement Thursday, January 18.

According to Airlangga, Indonesia is positive with almost all trading partners, such as with Europe, with India, with America. So of course this is the key to the country's economic strength.

On the other hand, Indonesia recorded a trade balance surplus in December 2023 with a value of 3.31 billion US dollars.

This figure is a surplus trend since May 2020 or has been going on for 44 consecutive months.

"This victory reflects the external resilience maintained amid the slowdown in the global economy," he said.

Airlangga conveyed that one of the implementations of the Government's commitment to boost national export performance is through efforts to diversify export products so that they are not only in the form of commodities but also in manufacturing products.

According to him, exports not only rely on primary commodities such as coal, palm oil, iron, steel, but also manufacturing goods such as motorized vehicles and electronic equipment.

Downstreaming is one of the keys to accelerating the industrial and export sectors, for this reason the Government focuses on creating added value on natural resource commodities such as bauxite, tin, and nickel.

The government has provided infrastructure, fiscal incentives, and a conducive industrial business environment to support downstream industries.

Smelter investment has demonstrated its ability to drive exports and increase national income.

Furthermore, the government's efforts to increase added value not only spur export performance, but also create jobs, and maintain economic resilience.

In the future, the government will also expand on a wider ecosystem such as the manufacture of domestic electric vehicles, especially on battery production.