Thailand has offered to buy more of Indonesia’s urea fertilizers as long as the latter opens its market for rice and meat, according to Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on his maiden Jakarta trip.
Speaking to President Prabowo Subianto, Anutin admitted that Bangkok sought a significant ramp-up of agricultural commerce with Jakarta. Thailand is already among Indonesia’s top rice suppliers, but the offer came amidst Prabowo’s ambitions to end import reliance for the staple food. Bangkok is also seeking to diversify its Jakarta-bound exports by including meat. Anutin even tried to sweeten the deal by promising to at least double its fertilizer orders.
“Thailand is ready to be a reliable supplier of high-quality rice for Indonesia. I seek your support to increase Thai agricultural [goods], meat, dairy products, as well as machinery,” Anutin said at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on Monday.
“In return, we would like to import more urea fertilizers. We can increase [the imports] from the current [annual] volume of approximately 60,000 tons to hundreds of thousands of tons a year.”
Prabowo said that the governments had agreed to settle commercial issues “as quickly and amicably as possible”, without specifying what problems had hindered trade.
The Indonesian leader did not make a specific comment on rice imports, but expressed optimism that they were on track to reach the targeted yearly trade of $20 billion by 2030. To this end, they are even willing to increase market access, while establishing a “joint trade commission” to address business obstacles.
“We have agreed to bolster cooperation in food security, particularly in terms of agricultural technology, logistics, food processing, and supply chain resilience,” Prabowo said.
Prabowo had previously declared an end to rice imports as of 2025, hence crossing off one of his election promises for food self-sufficiency. Throughout 2024, Indonesia had imported almost 1.4 million tons of Thai rice, data from the central statistics agency BPS showed.
Besides Thailand, Indonesia not long ago announced to have secured urea fertilizer orders from Australia and the Philippines. Poultry makes up a huge chunk of Thailand’s overall meat exports.
Indonesia’s official statistics showed that annual bilateral trade hovered around the $17 billion mark in recent years. Trade mainly tilted in Bangkok’s favor, although the deficit for Jakarta had shrunk from $2 billion in 2024 to just $140.6 million in 2025.
Anutin becomes the first Thai prime minister to visit Indonesia in 15 years.
© Copyright 2025 The SSResource Media.
All rights reserved.