Trade Balance Surplus Continues, This Is Bank Indonesia's Response

JAKARTA - Bank Indonesia (BI) stated that based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Indonesia's trade balance surplus continued in July 2023 amounting to 1.31 billion US dollars, although lower than the surplus in June 2023 of 3.45 billion US.

Head of the BI Communication Department Erwin Haryono said that this development was positive for efforts to continue to maintain the external resilience of the Indonesian economy.

"In the future, Bank Indonesia will continue to strengthen policy synergies with the government and other authorities to continue to increase external resilience and support national economic recovery," he said in a written statement quoted on Wednesday, August 16.

Erwin explained, the trade balance surplus in July 2023 was mainly driven by the continuation of the non-oil and gas trade balance surplus. He said, although it was slowing down compared to the previous month, the non-oil and gas trade balance recorded a surplus of 3.22 billion US dollars supported by the strong continued performance of non-oil and gas exports of 19.65 billion US dollars.

"The positive non-oil and gas export performance mainly comes from increasing exports of natural resource-based commodities such as nickel and precious metals along with global commodity prices that are still high," he said.

Meanwhile, the increase in non-oil and gas exports was also recorded in manufacturing products such as electric machinery and equipment, goods from iron and steel, as well as various chemical products. Based on the destination country, the performance of non-oil and gas exports to China, the United States, and Japan remains good and is the main contributor to Indonesia's total exports.

Meanwhile, non-oil and gas imports recorded an increase in all types of use of goods in line with increasing economic activity.

"On the other hand, the oil and gas trade balance deficit recorded an increase from 0.96 billion US dollars in June 2023 to 1.91 billion US dollars in July 2023," he said.

VOI noted that this slick score has extended the surplus trend for 39 consecutive months since May 2020.