Trade surplus reached $970.7m in May: Tunky

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Industry and Trade Tunky Ariwibowo yesterday reported a steep rise in trade surplus for May, which reached US$970.7 million, compared with $134.1 million at the same time last year.

Tunky also revealed that total trade surplus for the first five months of this year increased 57.89 percent to $3.31 billion over the same period last year.

But Indonesia suffered a $232.1 million deficit in non-oil trade during the first five months. This was compensated by the large surplus in oil and gas trade, which amounted to $3.54 billion.

Tunky said the trade surplus during the first five months was due to the rising exports of leading products, especially textiles, electronic goods and wood products.

"Electronics is good, textiles and wood products are also good. Also the depreciation of the rupiah (against the U.S. dollar) will have a positive impact on our exports," Tunky told journalists after reporting to President Soeharto.

But the weakening rupiah's impact on exports would only be seen in July and August's trade accounts, Tunky said.

Of the May surplus, $708.3 million was from the oil and gas sector, while the non-oil sector contributed $262.4 million.

Indonesia's exports rose 12.58 percent to $4.59 billion last May, including $980.1 million from oil and gas and $3.61 billion from non-oil exports.

But imports dropped by 8.2 percent to $3.62 billion last May, including $271.8 million oil and gas and $3.34 billion non-oil imports.

For the first five months of this year, Indonesia's exports increased by 9.31 percent to $21.15 billion, of which $5.2 billion was from oil and gas and $15.94 billion from non-oil exports.

Textile exports during the period increased by 10 percent to $2.1 billion, exports of electronics rose by 26 percent to $998 billion and wood products increased 11 percent to $1.9 billion.

Five-month imports, however, grew by only 3.4 percent to $17.83 billion, including $1.66 billion from oil and $16.18 billion non-oil imports.

Inflation

Meanwhile, chairman of the Central Bureau of Statistics Sugito Suwito said this year's inflation would still be under control despite the weakening rupiah.

Sugito said the government's current tight money policy would help keep inflation in check.

"This year's inflation rate will be slightly lower than last year's 6.47 percent," Sugito was quoted by Antara as saying.

Several parties have expressed concern that the weakening rupiah would automatically drive inflation up as commodity prices would eventually rise, adjusting themselves to the dollar's increasing value.

But Sugito said the tightening of the rupiah liquidity in the country's banking industry would slow down consumption and therefore press inflation.

"Based on our experience, the tightening of the rupiah has a positive impact on inflation. You can see from the 1992 tight money policy which drove inflation to below 5 percent," Sugito said.

He said the factor which was most likely to send inflation higher this year was drought, which was currently affecting several rice producing areas in the country.

"Drought will have a direct impact on inflation this year, not rupiah depreciation," Sugito said. (rid)