Jakarta - Indonesia's consumer price index in December declined 0.04 per cent against the previous month, driven by lower costs of transportation and communication, a senior government official said Monday.

The 2008 annual inflation rate was 11.06 per cent, said Ali Rosidi, deputy chairman of the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Rosidi said the December deflation was due to a decrease in the price index in the group transport, communications and financial services.

Total export value reached 9.61 billion dollars in November 2008, down 11.09 per cent from 11.81 billion dollars in October. It brought total exports for January-November
2008 to 128.09 billion dollars, or up 24.17 per cent, compared with the same period of the previous year.

Indonesia's January-November 2008 imports were valued at 120.97 billion dollars, down 10.57 per cent from the same period of 2007 at 135.27 billion dollars.

The number of foreign visitors in November stood at 524,200 persons, a rise of 9.94 per cent compared with the 476,800 foreign arrivals in November 2006. It brought the number of foreign visitors to Indonesia in the first 11 months of 2008 to 5.62 million, up 12.77 per cent from the same period in 2007 of 4.99 million, Rosidi said. (dpa)