"That is encouraging and we hope our exports are getting positive," stated Vice Ministry of Trade Bayu Krisnamurthi, at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday.
Bayu explained that the non-oil exports, at US$149.1 billion, decreased by two percent compared to the previous year, while the oil and gas exports at US$42.6 billion, decreased by 11.8 percent as compared with the previous year.
According to Bayu, 2013 was not an easy year, as the world markets situation was in uncertainty and has still not fully recovered from the economical crisis.
"With this performance, we can be more optimistic for 2014, because the market is more positive now as the exports to United States, Japan and Europe have given positive signs," he noted.
Bayu pointed out that the optimistic views provide an opportunity for Indonesia to improve performance in 2014 because the trade balance in December 2013 was recorded as the most surplus since the last two years at US$1.5 billion.
He added that the largest contributor of the value of exports in December 2013 was mineral fuels that reached US$2.1 billion, followed by fats and animals/vegetables oil valued at US$1.7 billion and also ores, slag and gray metal at US$975.7 million.
"In terms of some commodity products, the largest number of exports came from coal and vegetables fat or palm oil. In addition to this, some of our export commodities experienced a substantial growth in term of volume or value," he added.
Based on the data from the Trade Ministry, the values of non-oil exports to several countries that experienced significant increases are those to Turkey (US$172.8 million), followed by those to Myanmar, Nigeria, Vietnam, Ukraine and Egypt that reached a range of between US$88 million and US$184.8 million.
For some of the major trading partners, the non-oil exports also experienced a similar increase, such as India (US$563.4 million), United Stated (US$491 million) and China (US$418.1 million).
Several manufactured products contributed significantly to the increases of exports in December 2013 such as non-knitted apparel, increased to US$81.4 million or rose by 29.9 percent and also vehicle manufactures and spare parts increased to US$49 million or rose by 13.4 percent.
Reporting by Vicky Febrianto
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