Mustaqim Adamrah, Jakarta – The global economic downturn continues to strike the country's exports hard as weakening demand and falling commodity prices pushed down November's exports by around 11 percent from a month earlier, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported Monday.
Exports in November last year dropped to US$9.61 billion from $10.81 billion in the previous month. The November 2008 figures represented a 2.36 percent decline from the same month in 2007.
According to the BPS, exports of oil and gas products were recorded at $1.44 billion in November, while non-oil and gas exports stood at $8.17 billion.
"Like other ASEAN members and Japan, Indonesia's total exports also plunged 11.09 percent to $9.61 billion in November," the BPS' deputy head on distribution and service sector statistics, Ali Rosidi, told the press.
With the advanced economies beginning to head toward recession in October, importing countries started reducing demand, causing trade-dependent countries to suffer.
Indonesia – whose economy heavily depends on commodities such as coal, chocolate, palm oil, rubber, coffee, copper and tin – suffered significant drops in commodity exports.
The BPS noticed the deepest slump in non-oil and gas exports was in coal which fell as much as $232.2 million, while the highest gain was on woven garments, as high as $50 million.
Although overall exports dropped in November, Ali said exports to the United States, on the contrary, were up to $935.2 million from $922.7 million in October, thanks to increasing demand for fishery products, shrimps and woven garments during the Christmas holidays. The US, the world's largest importer, is now officially in a recession.
Ali said the country's fish and shrimp exports to the US rose to 29,700 tons in November from 5,400 tons in October.
Ali said declining exports have had an impact on the nation's trade balance, although not too much, as imports were also down. "On the bright side, our trade balance in the January-November period is still positive because our imports dropped more than our exports," Ali said.
During that period, the country's total exports and imports reached $128.09 billion and $120.97 billion, respectively.
Meanwhile, total exports and imports in the January-November 2007 period stood at $103.16 billion and $56.06 billion, respectively, the BPS figures show.
Total imports slumped 17.87 percent to $8.72 billion in November last year from October's $10.61 billion, although still higher than the $5.86 billion in November 2007.
Ali said the drop in imports mainly occurred on the imports of raw and supporting materials that accounted for 73.02 percent of non-oil and gas imports in November, compared to 74.89 percent in October.
Meanwhile, the BPS figures show that imports of productive and consumption goods in November contributed 20.07 percent and 6.91 percent, respectively, of non-oil and gas imports.