Jakarta (VNA) – The Indonesian government has announced that it expects the value of exports to grow by 12.8% in 2023, much lower than the growth of 29.8% in 2022, according to Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto.

Speaking after the recent Government meeting on the country’s exports in 2022 and targets for 2023, the minister said that this year, export growth will slow down compared to last year.

Similarly, imports are projected to increase by 14.9% in 2023 after growing by 29.4% in 2022.

The minister explained that the slowdown cannot be separated from observations of the global economy’s development which has been projected to decline.

According to him, Indonesia’s economy has been deemed resilient because the nation’s dependence on exports is relatively low, contributing less than 50%.

Export’s contribution to Indonesia‘s economic growth is 45%, slightly lower than that of Japan with 47%, but higher than that of Brazil (40%), China (39%), and the US (28%).

Indonesia’s trade growth is also forecast to slow down, to just about 1% in 2023 while last year, its growth reached 3.5%.

According to the minister, in 2022, Indonesia’s export value has increased significantly to 268 billion USD thanks to three main commodities including iron and steel, fossil energy, and crude palm oil (CPO), which contributed largely to the trade surplus./.