Indonesia records 186.8 mln USD trade surplus in Dec.

Indonesia's trade performance swung to a 186.8-million-U.S. dollar surplus in December after registering 420-million-U.S. dollar deficit in the previous month, the national statistic bureau announced here on Monday.

The surplus occurred as the country's non-oil and gas trade balance witnessed a surplus of 1.22 billion U.S. dollars in December but the oil and gas trade performance had had a deficit of 1.04 billion U.S. dollars in the month, said Suryamin, head of the bureau.

The surplus in December led the country's trade deficit gap in the whole year of 2014 to narrow to 1.88 billion U.S. dollars from 4.08 billion U.S. dollars deficit in 2013, he told a press conference.

The Southeast Asia's largest economy's total export in December was 14.62 billion U.S. dollars, falling by 13.83 percent year on year, while import reached 14.43 billion U.S. dollars or down by 6. 61 percent, said Suryamin.

Indonesia has scrambled to narrow large current account deficit gap, such as by slashing a huge subsidy on fuels.

But still weakening prices of global commodities have weakened the country's exports.

Indonesia's current account deficit stood at 6.836 billion U.S. dollars or 3.07 percent of the GDP at the third quarter last year, falling from 8.689 billion U.S. dollars or 4.07 percent of the GDP at the previous quarter, according to the central bank.

The lender has implemented a tight monetary policy since last year as it aims to contain inflation and curb current account shortfall.

The bank has kept its benchmark interest rate steady at 7.5 percent since December. Endi