RI'S Q1 BALANCE OF PAYMENTS UP TO $59 B

Jakarta, June 9 (ANTARA) - Indonesia's balance of payments (NPI) in the first quarter of 2008 recorded a surplus of US$1 billion with the total amount of payments recorded at US$59 billion, Bank Indonesia (BI) said. The figure was more or less equivalent to five months of imports and state foreign debt repayments, the central bank's public relations bureau said in a press statement on Monday. It said the country's foreign exchange reserves stood at US$57.464 billion in the month ended on May 30, 2008. The NPI surplus originated from a US$2.8 billion surplus in current account transactions fueled by an excess of exports over imports and remittances from migrant Indonesian workers aboard. The growth of current account transactions indicated that the external sector still gave positive contributions to the domestic economy's performance, it said. Exports in the first quarter of 2008 were valued at US$34.4 billion (f.o.b), up 29.2 percent from the same period last year. Oil and gas exports recorded the highest growth at 61.7 percent, followed by non-oil/non-gas exports which grew 21.8 percent, it said. A surge in the prices of oil and several key non-oil/non-gas commodities such as palm oil, rubber and tin coupled with rising demand in the export market contributed to the increase in the export value. In the meantime, imports reached US$26.8 billion (f.o.b), up 41.9 percent, suggesting that there were still robust economic activities at home. The surplus in current account transactions offset a US$1.4 billion deficit in capital and financial transactions partly caused by a drop in foreign portfolio capital inflows to the country. The drop was triggered by the global financial market which had not yet recovered from the US subprime mortgage crisis, coupled with investors' negative perception of the state budget's resistance to the pressure of global crude price spiral.