Indonesia's export in May reached 8. 34 billion U.S. dollars, the highest ever, the National Statistic Bureau announced Monday.

"This is the highest ever Indonesia has," said the head of the bureau Rusman Heriawan in a press conference. The figure grew 9.79 percent from the previous month, he said.

He said that cumulative export by May was 38.39 billion U.S. dollars, or 14.40 percent higher from the same period last years.

The rise of the figure in May was driven by the increase of exports of the non-oil-and-gas products by 10,52 percent and the oil-and-gas product by 7.22 percent, respectively to 6,553 billion U.S. dollars and 1.789 billion U.S. dollars, he said.

The hike of the oil-and-gas export was caused by the rise of export of fuel production by 7.22 percent and gas by 13.95 percent to 0.227 billion U.S. dollars and 0.623 billion U.S. dollars.

He said that export of non-oil-and-gas increased from 5.9 billion U.S. dollars in April to 6.55 billion U.S. dollars in May.

The United States followed by Japan and Singapore were still the main destination countries for Indonesia's non-oil-and-gas export in May, said Heriawan.

While, Indonesia's import in May reached 5.06 billion U.S. dollars or 6.49 percent grew from April, he said.

Heriawan said the cumulative import for the first five months was 23.14 billion U.S. dollars or declined slightly by 2.12 percent from the same period in 2005.

Japan, followed by the United States and China, were still the most contributive countries on Indonesia's import, he said.

Source: Xinhua