Indonesia’s bustling trade with international partners has shown remarkable trends, particularly with its non-oil and gas exports. The island nation has forged strong trading relationships with countries like China, India, and the United States. Recent reports from Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reveal that in April 2024, China secured the top spot as the largest importer of Indonesian commodities.
Specific figures show that Indonesia’s specialty non-oil and gas exports to China soared to $4.28 billion, claiming a significant 23.43% slice of the country’s total non-oil and gas exports. Despite holding the premier position in the market, Indonesia’s export values to China saw a slight dip from March 2024’s high of $4.75 billion.
The observed decline in commodity exports to China is primarily attributed to reduced sales in mineral fuels, ores with metal ash remnants, and animal or vegetable fats and oils.
Moving to trade relations with India, Indonesia’s exports exhibited a positive trajectory, clocking in at $1.81 billion or 9.94% of Indonesia’s cumulative non-oil and gas exports. This represents a boost from $1.78 billion in the previous month.
On the other hand, the United States, another substantial importer, recorded an intake value of $1.75 billion in April 2024, which accounts for 9.61% of Indonesia’s total non-oil and gas exports. Nonetheless, this figure marked a reduction from March 2024, which stood at $2.10 billion.
Collectively, exports from Indonesia to these three nations comprise approximately 42.98% of all non-oil and gas exports from the country as of April 2024.
Peeking into other regions, non-oil and gas exports to the ASEAN community dipped to $3.35 billion, which is a decline from the $3.80 billion seen in the preceding month. Similarly, exports aimed for the European Union shrank to $1.24 billion, a slight drop when juxtaposed with the $1.45 billion reported earlier.
As for other countries beyond these mentioned markets, exports totaled $5.83 billion, a downturn from the $7.22 billion documented in the previous timeframe.
In a broad overview, Indonesia’s non-oil and gas exports in April 2024 experienced an overall decrease of 14.06% compared to March 2024, yet there was a 1.33% year-on-year growth when matched with April 2023’s data. Contributing to this decline were sectors such as precious metals and gems, a 2.12% drop, alongside decreases in the export of electrical machinery and equipment by 1.44%, and vehicles and parts by 0.77%.
It’s worth noting that Indonesia’s trade balance in April 2024 reflected a surplus of $3.56 billion, primarily fueled by the robust non-oil and gas sector surplus of $5.17 billion, notwithstanding a deficit of $1.61 billion from the oil and gas sector.