REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Oil and gas imports continue to put pressure on Indonesian trade balance despite a 6.7 billion USD surplus in trade of other commodities in the first seven months of the year.

In the same period, oil and gas trade still left a deficit of 7.7 billion USD, deputy trade minister Bayu Krisnamurthi said. Altogether, the country's trade balance still had a deficit of around 1 billion USD, but it did not mean the trade performance had been bad, Krisnamurthi said here on Tuesday.

He said the performance was still better if compared to trade balance in the same period in 2013 when the deficit was recorded at 2.3 billion USD. In July alone, a surplus was recorded at 123.7 million USD thanks to a surplus of 1.73 billion  USD in trade of commodities other than oil and gas . The surplus was reduced by a deficit of 1.6 billion USD in the oil and gas trade.

Surplus was recorded in July 2014 despite a 7.9 percent fall in exports compared with the previous month. The surplus in non-oil/gas trade in July was thanks to a 19.5 percent decline in imports of the commodities other than oil and gas with imports of consumer goods shrinking 27.3 percent.

Surpluses were recorded in trade with India, the United States, the Philippines, the Netherlands and Pakistan, but deficit was recorded in trade with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, China, and Argentina.

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