World Bank: Introducing Indonesia’s Revised Statistics Methodology

The new calculation method applied by BPS, considered an important step forward in the process of improving Indonesia’s statistics tracking, therefore changes Indonesia’s previously published GDP statistics. Sienaert notes several important changes:

• Total output in current prices is about 4.4 percent larger than previously estimated in 2014 (and 5.2 percent larger on average over 2010-2014). This is a significant change, adding IDR 448 trillion (USD 35.5 billion) at the current market exchange rate, to the estimated size of the economy as of 2014. Roughly a third of the extra measured output is due to the incorporation of new kinds of economic activity under SNA 2008, and about two-thirds comes from more accurate measurements of previously-measured kinds of output, according to BPS.

• Although the improved measurement of output results in a higher level of GDP, it also results in the measured rate of growth of the economy since 2011 being lower, by a significant 0.3 percentage points in 2011, about 0.2 percentage points in 2012 and 2013, and a marginal 0.04 percentage points in 2014.

In the table below, the new GDP statistics of Indonesia are presented:

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Nominal GDP IDR trillion, Base 2000	6,447	7,419	8,231	9,087	10,095
Nominal GDP IDR trillion, Base 2010	6,864	7,832	8,616	9,525	10,543
Nominal GDP USD billion, Base 2000	715	853	879	873	843
Nominal GDP USD billion, Base 2010	761	901	921	915	887
Nominal GDP Growth Rate percent, Base 2000	15.0	15.1	10.9	10.4	11.1
Nominal GDP Growth Rate percent, Base 2010	14.2	14.1	10.0	10.6	10.7
Real GDP IDR trillion, Base 2000	2,314	2,465	2,619	2,769	2,909
Real GDP IDR trillion, Base 2010	6,864	7,288	7,727	8,158	8,568
Real GDP Growth Rate percent, Base 2000	6.2	6.5	6.3	5.7	5.1
Real GDP Growth Rate percent , Base 2010	6.4	6.2	6.0	5.6	5.0
GDP Deflator Growth Rate percent, Base 2000	8.3	8.1	4.4	4.4	5.7
GDP Deflator Growth Rate percent, Base 2010	7.3	7.5	3.8	4.7	5.4
Nominal GDP per Capita USD, Base 2000	3,009	3,527	3,583	3,510	3,342
Nominal GDP per Capita USD, Base 2010	3,203	3,723	3,751	3,679	3,518

^{Sources: Statistics Indonesia and World Bank staff calculations}

As annual GDP growth is the main indicator against which many other economic variables are gauged, it therefore causes some important revisions:

• Indonesia’s current account deficit: at a cumulative USD $20 billion over the first three quarters of 2014 was equivalent to 3.1 percent of cumulative GDP, now, however, a smaller 2.9 percent of GDP.

• Indonesia’s external debt stock: at USD $294.4 billion as of November 2014 (source: Bank Indonesia), was equivalent to 34.7 percent of GDP for 2014, now, however, a smaller 33.2 percent

• Indonesia’s fiscal deficit, at IDR 227.4 trillion in 2014 (unaudited), was 2.3 percent of GDP, now, however, a narrower 2.2 percent.

• Indonesia’s tax revenues, at IDR 1,143 trillion in 2014, were equivalent to 11.4 percent of GDP, now, however, a lower 10.8 percent.

Sienaert notes that although these macroeconomic variables of Indonesia have been revised, the magnitude of the changes to GDP ratios are not dramatic and therefore it is not required to rethink economic conditions and risks. “After all, Indonesia still recorded USD $20 billion worth of net current account outflows in 2014 through the third quarter, and had to finance the same fiscal deficit, as it did before, and the government faces the same, well-recognized challenge to raise more revenues, even if this is now starting from a lower-than-previous tax-to-GDP ratio,” he writes. In other cases, such recalculations resulted in far greater differences (for example the case of Nigeria which approximately doubled the estimated size of the economy).

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