“ RI posts $1b balance of payments
surplus “
JAKARTA
: Indonesia recorded a US$1 billion balance of payments surplus (1) Simple past tense in the fourth quarter of 2017 on
the back of improving capital and financial accounts amid rising inflows.
The overall balance of payments
surplus throughout 2017 reached $11.6 billion, (2)
Simple Past Tense indicating balanced external conditions supporting
macroeconomic stability, said Bank Indonesia’s (BI) undersecretary for
communications Junanto Herdiawan in a statement.
Capital and financial accounts
saw a surplus of $6.5 billion (3) Simple Past Tense
in the fourth quarter last year amid investor optimism toward
Indonesia’s economy and improvement in yields of domestic financial assets. How
ever, the surplus recorded was lower compared to a quarter earlier.
The lower surplus in capital and
financial accounts was caused by several factors, (4)
Passive Voice = Simple Past Tense the first being a declining surplus in
direct investment, including in oil and gas.
Another factor was a decrease in
surplus of portfolio investment (5) Simple Past
Tense because of outflows of foreign money in rupiah-denominated
securities given the rising uncertainty in global financial markets in the
early fourth quarter of 2017.
However, the country remained to
see rising capital inflows, (6) Simple Past Tense which
helped drive its foreign exchange reserves to its highest point at $130.2
billion as of December last year, sufficient to finance up to 8.3 months of
imports and foreign debt.
The deficit in the current account,
meanwhile, rose to $5.8 billion, or 2.2 percent of the country’s gross domestic
product (GDP), in the fourth quarter of 2017. The deficit was higher
compared to $4.6 billion, (7) Comparative Adjective
= Simple Past Tense or 1.7 percent of GDP, recorded in the earlier
quarter.
Reference :
The
Jakarta Post (Saturday, February 10th 2018)
