Overall, we can conclude that 2021 has been a good year for Indonesia in terms of trade. Indonesian exports grew rapidly in 2021 thanks to the rebound in global economic activity (which sent global commodity prices skyrocketing) after the intensity of the COVID-19 crisis subsided, while imports needed a little longer to recover. Moreover, as there has been an unprecedented drop in consumption, production and trade, demand for energy has fallen correspondingly in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Indonesia – which typically runs a deficit in oil and gas trade – has therefore seen its oil and gas deficit ease sharply since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020.
In 2019 (“before the COVID-19 crisis”), Indonesia imported an average of about US$1.75 billion per month of oil and gas products. It is very interesting to mention that in the last two months (November and December 2021), Indonesia is – for the first time since the crisis – back to this level (with 1.69 billion USD of imports of oil and gas in November 2021 and USD 2.28 billion of oil and gas imports in December 2021). This is something particularly worth monitoring in the coming months (to confirm that this apparent import of recovered energy is not just a temporary phenomenon).
On the other hand, the normalization of Indonesia’s import performance also means that the monthly trade balance is bound to come under pressure. We have already seen this happen in December 2021 when the country’s trade surplus reached $1.02 billion “only”, which is the lowest monthly surplus since April 2020.
Overall, in 2021, Indonesia’s trade balance surplus was very impressive at $35.34 billion, which then supported the country’s current account balance and rupiah foreign exchange trade. .
[…]
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