Indonesia's export up 15 pct in first half year

Indonesia's export rose by 15.14 percent to 46.92 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2006 against 40.75 billion in the corresponding period last year, the government announced Tuesday.

Oil and gas exports climbed by 17.83 percent to 10.4 billion dollars and non-oil and gas export also increased by 14.4 percent to 36.5 billion, the Central Statistics Agency said in its monthly report.

Japan was the largest destination of Indonesia's non-oil export in the first six months of 2006, amounting to 5.3 billion dollars.

The United States ranked the second with 5.2 billion dollars, trailed by Singapore with 3.8 billion, China with 2.4 billion and Malaysia with 2.03 billion.

In June alone, export was up slightly by 1.7 percent to 8.48 billion dollars from the previous month, the agency said.

Meanwhile, first-half import figure barely changed with a slight increase of 1.3 percent year-on-year at 28.84 billion dollars, comprising 8.97 billion dollars of oil and gas import and 19.87 billion of non-oil import.

Japan was the largest supplier of Indonesia's non-oil import with 2.5 billion dollars, trailed by China with 2.3 billion, the United States with 1.98 billion and Singapore with 1.76 billion.

Monthly import rose by 12 percent to 5.67 billion dollars in June from 5.06 billion in May, said the agency.

Source: Xinhua