Indonesian non-oil export this year will likely to decrease by 20 percent against 2008 due to the global economic downturn, the Indonesian Business daily reported on Thursday.

"The fall by 20 percent is caused by the global economic slowdown which will likely grow only 0.5 percent in 2009," the daily newspapers quoted the Indonesian National Development Planning Board (Bappenas)'s Director for Macro Planning Bambang Prijambodo as saying.

Bambang said that the country's non-oil export value started to decrease month on month in July 2008. "The global economic slowdown hit all countries in the world that influence the demand for Indonesian non-oil products," he said.

Based on the data of the National Statistics Agency (BPS), Indonesian export value dropped by 16.67 percent in January 2009 to 6.2 billion dollars from December 2008.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2009)