JAKARTA, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI), estimated that the nation's current account deficit may go above 3 percent of GDP in the third quarter this year due to massive imports of oil and gas in July and August.
BI Governor Perry Warjiyo said on Friday that trade surplus in September, amounted 230 million U.S. dollars, was hardly able to cover the significant deficit from oil and gas imports in the two previous months in the third quarter.
"CAD (Current Account Deficit) above 3 percent from GDP was still normal. We expect the CAD in the third quarter would be no higher than 3.5 percent," he said.
He added that positive results from the government's policies to tackle the CAD have started to occur in September.
The government has increased the prices of fuels, tax for certain imported goods, expand the mix of biofuel in fuels and delayed less-urgent infrastructure projects to address the swelling of CAD.
Through the concerted measures the BI expected that the CAD may decrease to below 3 percent next year.
Southeast Asia's largest economy posted a 3 percent CAD that equals to 8 billion U.S. dollars in the second quarter. The figure was higher than 2.2 percent, or 5.7 billion U.S. dollars recorded in the first quarter this year.
