Indo-Australia trade growing 10 pct

Data at the Ministry of Trade indicated that Indonesia-Australia trade stood at 3.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2005 and grew by over 40 percent to 8.1 billion US dollars in 2009.

During the period, Indonesia was always in a deficit with imports consistently bigger than exports with a tendency to slightly increase from 0.3 billion US dollars in 2005 to 0.17 billion US dollars in 2009.

The latest data showed, in the first semester of 2010, Australia was in the 15th position as an export market for Indonesian non-oil/ non-gas products whereas Australia ranked seventh as Indonesia`s source of imported goods.

Indonesia`s top five export commodities to Australia in 2009 were crude oil, gold lumps, ingots/cast bars, other non-coniferous and other teak strips friezes for parquet flooring, other color receivers, paper and paperboard.

The top five import products from Australia in that period were wheat, livestock , aluminium oxide, meat of bovine animals and cotton.

Cumulative approvals for Australian investments from January 1990 to November 2009 were valued at 1.4 billion US dollars consisting of 317 projects ranging from mining sectors to oil and gas, construction, transportation and communication.

Australia ranked 12th on Indonesia`s foreign investment list with 27,000 people employed in those projects.