Wow! Indonesian Dates Imports Rise 7 Million US Dollars In The 3 Months Before Ramadan This Year

The activity of buying and selling dates. (Photo: By courtesy)

JAKARTA - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed that imports of date palm food commodities experienced a high enough jump in the first three months of 2020.

Head of BPS Suhariyanto said that, gradually, spending on dates from abroad has increased since January this year. He noted that imports of typical Middle Eastern foodstuffs in January 2020 were valued at US $ 10.3 million.

Then, this figure jumped in February 2021 to 14.9 million US dollars, and in March 2021 to 17.1 million US dollars. This means that during the first quarter of 2021 there was a graph of an increase of around US $ 7 million.

"This is understandable because we cannot produce dates and have to import them from other countries," he said in a virtual press conference, Thursday, April 15.

Suhariyanto added, there are three main countries that have been the main suppliers of dates for Indonesia's consumption needs.

"Dates are imported from three main countries, namely Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia," he said.

On this occasion, the Head of BPS also conveyed the latest developments in exports and imports of goods during the first trimester of 2021.

It was stated that, the export value of Indonesia from January to March 2021 reached US $ 48.90 billion, an increase of 17.11 percent over the same period in 2020.

According to the province of origin, Indonesia's largest exports in January - March 2021 came from West Java with a value of 8.14 billion US dollars (16.65 percent), followed by East Java with 5.22 billion US dollars (10.68 percent) and Riau 4 , 44 billion US dollars (9.07 percent).

Meanwhile, from the import side, it was recorded at US $ 43.38 billion, or grew by 10.76 percent compared to the same period in 2020 which was US $ 39.17 billion.

So that Indonesia experienced a trade surplus of 5.52 billion US dollars during the first three months of 2020.