JAKARTA: Indonesia's trade surplus likely narrowed last month, as prices of coal, one of its top commodities, eased, while imports rose ahead of year-end festivities, a Reuters poll of anaysts showed on Tuesday.
The median forecast for November's trade surplus in the poll was $4.45 billion, among Indonesia's biggest-ever monthly surpluses, driven by a commodity upcycle, but it was seen shrinking from October's record $5.74 billion.
Analysts expected November's export growth to have decelerated to 44%, from 53.35% in the previous month. Imports were seen growing 37.55%, compared with October's 51.06%.
Bank Mandiri economist Faisal Rachman, who predicted a $4.4 billion surplus in November, said Indonesia has a chance of recording a 0.1% of GDP current account surplus this year due to strong exports.
"This could support the rupiah exchange rate stability amid pressure from the global monetary policy normalisation and the fear of Omicron variant," he said.
The trade data, scheduled to be released on Wednesday, may inform decision making for the central bank, which will begin a two-day monetary policy meeting on the same day.
Bank Indonesia is expected to keep interest rates unchanged and its first rate hike could be in the third quarter of 2022.
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