Economy grew 4.77% in 2000, but growth may slow in 2001

JAKARTA (JP): The economy grew by 4.77 percent in 2000 after three years of recession, the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) reported on Tuesday.

But BPS said that the economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), declined by 0.72 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, raising concern that growth in 2001 would slow down.

"Economic growth in 2000 was particularly driven by investment and exports," said BPS deputy Kusmadi Saleh at a press conference.

BPS said that exports expanded by 16.06 percent last year, investment was up 17.91 percent, government consumption 6.49 percent, household consumption 3.63 percent, and imports grew by 18.18 percent.

The strong export performance last year was helped by the high international oil price. Indonesia is an oil exporting country.

The 4.8 percent GDP growth, compared to a contraction of more than 13 percent in 1998 and virtually zero growth in 1999, was generally in line with government and analyst expectation.

But the dependence on exports has made the country's economic growth in 2001 vulnerable to external shocks, particularly in view of the expected economic slowdown in the U.S., Indonesia's traditional largest export market, and lower international oil price, analysts said.

Anton Gunawan, an economist at Citibank in Jakarta, said that the 0.72 percent decline in the fourth quarter GDP growth from the third quarter might portend lower growth this year.

"We forecast an economic growth of only 4.3 percent in 2001," he said.

But Anton said that investment would continue to pick up this year as long as there are no serious political and security disturbances.

Separately, Bank Indonesia announced on Tuesday that GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was expected to be around 4-5 percent up from a year earlier, a slowdown from the 5.2 percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year.

However, the central bank maintained its forecast of 4.5-5.5 percent economic growth for 2001.

In comparison, the government has assumed a 5 percent economic growth for the 2001 state budget.

Elsewhere, BPS said that exports slowed in the last three months of 2000, falling 0.89 percent from the previous quarter, a major contributor to the slower economic performance in the fourth quarter.

The agency said that the drop in agricultural output by 12.55 percent quarter-on-quarter also contributed to slower growth in the fourth quarter.

Other sectoral data for the three months to December compared to the previous quarter were as follows: mining was up 2.19 percent, the manufacturing industry rose 2.50 percent, electricity, gas and water increased 2.46 percent, construction was up 0.67 percent, hotel, restaurant and trading up 1.53 percent, transportation and communication up 3.17 percent, finance and leasing up 0.8 percent and other services were down 0.12 percent.

BPS said that last year, agriculture output increased by 1.67 percent compared to a year earlier, mining was up 2.33 percent, the processing industry rose 6.2 percent, electricity, gas and water was up 8.78 percent, construction up 6.75 percent, hotel, restaurant and trading rose 5.69 percent, transportation and communication was up 9.38 percent, finance and leasing up 4.69 percent and other services were up 2.22 percent.

It said that dry unhusked rice output in 2000 totaled 51.18 million metric tons, as against 50.87 million a year earlier.

BPS said rice output in 2001 was projected to decline by about 2.15 percent due to the reduction in planted acreage.

Corn output in 2000 totaled 9.34 million tons, compared to 9.20 million tons a year earlier, it added.

Soybean output reached 1.01 million tons, compared to 1.38 million last year, BPS said. (rei)