JAKARTA – Amid pressures resulted from the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, Indonesia’s palm oil industry can still perform well and significantly contribute to the national economy.
The Covid-19 pandemic is still running rampant, impacting the global economy and Indonesian economy. But after seeing recession with minus growth last year, the Indonesian economy has seen a recovery since early this year. During the first quarter 2021, the national economic growth reached -0.74%, which was far better than the previous quarters.
While other industries suffered from minus growth due to the pandemic, the palm oil industry can still realize positive performance until April 2021. Indonesia’s exports of palm oil products increased significantly. Based on data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), Indonesia’s total exports in April 2021 reached US$18.48 billion or an increase of 52% from those of the same period last year at US$12.16 billion.
BPS noted that high growth of palm oil exports during April 2021 was resulted from the increase of the commodity’s price and demand at the global market.
Meanwhile, during 2020 the palm oil industry had given a big contribution to the surplus of Indonesia’s trade balance. BPS reported that Indonesia’s trade balance in 2020 saw a surplus of US$21.74 billion.
Of the total surplus, the palm oil exports contributed US$22.97 billion or an increase of 13.60% compared to that in 2019.
The increase of export value was supported by the increase of CPO price and vegetable oils. The average price of CPO and vegetable oils during the first quarter 2020 reached US$646 per ton, which then rose to US$775 per ton during the second semester 2020. During January-August 2019 the price reached US$524 per ton.
The palm oil commodity did not only see an increase in exports, but also from domestic market. During 2020, the domestic consumption increased 3.6% as compared to that of the previous year at 17.35 million tons. The increase was resulted from the increase of demand for oleo-chemicals to meet the need of soaps, cleaning products, sanitizers, biodiesel and other products needed to keep the sanitary condition and human immunity to prevent the spread of Covid-19. (*)
Source: Investor Daily
