Minister Of Trade Lutfi Says Indonesia's Economy Is Running, But On 'Uphill'

Minister of Trade, M. Lutfi. (Photo: Doc. Of the Ministry of Trade)

JAKARTA - Minister of Trade (Minister of Trade) Muhammad Lutfi said the Indonesian trade sector was still in a very worrying condition. When viewed from Indonesia's trade surplus throughout 2020 which reached US $ 21.7 billion.

"That in my opinion is very worrying. Why? Because if we look at it, exports have fallen by 2.6 percent. Even though non-oil and gas decreased only 0.5 percent. But imports have fallen further to 17.3 percent," he said, during a webinar event. Economic Recovery Acceleration ', Tuesday, 26 January.

In fact, the surplus that occurred in 2020 was the highest for the first time since 2012. Even so, said Lutfi, in the aggregate there is still weakness.

According to Lutfi, if there is no balance between exports and imports or domestic imports will experience a drastic decline. So there is a concern that there will be weaknesses in the production sector, which is the basis for domestic consumption.

Furthermore, Lutfi said, looking inward again, the coefficient of the surplus shows a weakening because 70.2 percent of imported goods are raw materials and auxiliary materials.

"So if I make an analogy between these two things, it is like this. In 2012 when we had a surplus of more than 20 billion dollars, when we ran this marathon it was derivative. Today (2020) we are running a marathon uphill hurriedly and most importantly we must understand at this time. It's an injury going on in our bodies, "he said.

For your information, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reports that in 2020 Indonesia will experience a trade balance surplus of up to 21.74 billion US dollars.

Head of BPS Suhariyanto said the value of trade throughout 2020 was the highest in the last nine years. Because in 2011, the trade balance value throughout the year experienced a surplus of up to 26.06 billion US dollars.

Suhariyanto said that the trade balance surplus occurred because the value of Indonesia's exports was greater than the value of imports. BPS also noted that during 2020 the value of Indonesia's exports reached US $ 163.3 billion.

When compared with the same period last year, the total export value contracted 2.61 percent. Meanwhile, the total imports during 2020 reached 141.5 billion US dollars. This number contracted 17.34 percent when compared to 2019.

As for the details, annual exports for oil and gas fell 29.52 percent, agriculture increased by 13.98 percent, the processing industry increased by 2.95 percent, and mining fell by 20.7 percent. Meanwhile, imports when viewed based on the use of goods consist of imports of consumer goods which fell 10.93 percent, supporting raw materials was minus 18.32 percent, and capital goods decreased by 16.73 percent.