JAKARTA, April 15 (Reuters) - Indonesia's exports surged in March on higher commodity prices, while imports also jumped, bringing the month's trade surplus to $1.56 billion, near market expectation, data from the statistics bureau showed on Thursday.
Exports beat forecast with an annual jump of 30.47% to $18.35 billion on rising shipments of oil, natural gas, palm oil, steel and coal. The increase was the highest since July 2017 and compared with a Reuters poll forecast of 11.74%.
Meanwhile, imports were up 25.73% to $16.79 billion, also higher than the 6% forecast. This was the strongest growth since July 2018. (Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo and Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
