Celios Highlights Four Anomalies in BPS Economic Growth Data
Director of the Digital Economy at the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios), Nailul Huda, assesses that there is a discrepancy between the first-quarter 2026 economic growth achievement and the supporting macroeconomic data. “There is an anomaly in the conditions against the government’s calculations,” he stated in a written release on Tuesday, 5 May 2026.
The Central Statistics Agency reported economic growth for January–March 2026 at 5.61%. This figure surged compared to the same period last year, which was 4.96%.
According to Nailul, there are four economic conditions that do not reflect the economic growth. First, household consumption, which BPS claims grew significantly by 5.52% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2025 at 4.96%.
He then compared it with Bank Indonesia’s Consumer Confidence Index data for March 2026, which stood at 122.9 basis points, a decline from January 2026 at 127 basis points. Normally, the Consumer Confidence Index reflects household consumption movements.
Additionally, there was a slowdown in the growth of clothing, footwear, and maintenance services consumption compared to the first quarter of 2025. This is despite the Ramadan and Eid moments that should have boosted such consumption.
Meanwhile, last year, the growth of clothing, footwear, and maintenance services consumption was 6.86%, yet household consumption slowed. “So there is an anomaly in the household consumption calculation done by BPS,” he said.
The second data highlighted by Nailul is the high growth in transportation and communication consumption compared to the previous four quarters. Its growth in the first quarter reached 6.91%.
However, at the same time, transportation and warehousing services only grew by 8.04%. This achievement was even much lower compared to last year. The same applies to the growth of information and communication services, which slowed in the same period.
The third data highlighted is the growth in gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) for vehicles. Vehicle sub-GFCF managed to grow by 12.39%, but the transport equipment industry contracted by up to 5.02%.
Nailul suspects that the vehicle GFCF growth was contributed by large vehicle imports for the needs of the Merah Putih Village Cooperative. Ultimately, cooperative imports become the justification for the extraordinarily high vehicle GFCF growth, even though the industry is experiencing contraction.
The last data highlighted by Nailul is the processing industry, which faced considerable pressure, growing only by 5.04% in the first quarter. He questions how economic growth can be so high while industrial growth is far slower. This is because the processing industry’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) reaches 19%.