Indonesia's Q1 current account deficit down to 1.8% of GDP

[JAKARTA] Indonesia's current account deficit narrowed in the first quarter of the year, in line with a trade surplus of more than US$2 billion during the period, a central bank official said on Friday.

The January-March current account gap was 1.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) or equal to US$3.8 billion, smaller than the revised 2.6 per cent deficit in 2014's fourth quarter, Endy Dwi Tjahjono, director at Bank Indonesia's statistics department, told a press conference.

Although showing an improvement, the deficit is wider than Bank Indonesia's initial estimate of 1.6 per cent of GDP for the first quarter.

BI said it is maintaining its outlook that full-year current account deficit for 2015 at around 3 per cent of GDP. For 2014, the central bank put the deficit at 2.86 per cent of GDP.

The current account is the broadest measure of a country's foreign trade transactions of both goods and services. It is a part of the balance of payments, which summarize an economy's transactions with the rest of the world.

Indonesia's balance of payments showed a surplus of US$1.3 billion in the first quarter, smaller than the US$2.4 billion it had a quarter before.

The surplus was derived from a US$5.9 billion surplus in capital and financial account.

REUTERS