Remarks of President of the Republic of Indonesia at the 11th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Plenary Hall, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, the Russian Federation, Thursday, September 3, 2026

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh,
Syalom,
Salve,
Om swastiastu,
Greetings of Virtue,

Rahayu.

Your Excellency, President Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation;
Excellencies Heads of State and Government;
His Excellency Prime Minister of Mongolia Mr. Uchral;
His Excellency First Vice President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar Mr, Nyo Saw;
His Excellency of Vice Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, His Excellency Mr. Ding XueXiang;

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, I would like to thank President Putin, the Government of the Russian Federation and the Roscongress Foundation for the honor of inviting me to be present and to address this forum.

Mr. President,

It feels like only yesterday that in June last year, you invited me to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Then, I called SPIEF, the beating heart of the world’s emerging multipolar economy. Here in Vladivostok, we stand at the Pacific Gateway. I became President of Indonesia, a country of 290 million people, almost two years ago. However, this is already my second visit to Russia this year. But in fact, this is the fifth time since I became President of Indonesia that I am meeting President Putin. I look forward to returning the hospitality granted to me by Russia and welcome President Putin and many of you in Indonesia.

Today, I will explain to you, Distinguished Delegates, to the 11th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF). Why Indonesia, situated between the Indian and Pacific Ocean, is trying to build a stronger bridge to the Russian Far East and to the Eurasian Economic Union? The Russian Far East and Indonesia are both very vast. It takes many hours to fly from one end of our territories to the other end. We know that a capital city can sometimes feel very far from a frontier community. But, Vladivostok also feels rather close to my home. The same great ocean, the Pacific Ocean, touches the shores of Russia and also touches the shores of Indonesia. The Pacific Ocean does not separate us. The Pacific Ocean connects us. It is not a wall between us. It must be a highway between our two economies.

Excellencies,

The theme of this forum is the Far East: Development for the Benefit of People. I must tell you that this is not only the theme of the Russian Far East, it is also the mandate given to me by the people of Indonesia.

Last year in St. Petersburg, I explained Indonesia’s economic philosophy as realism, pragmatism, and the pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest many. We believe in enterprise, initiative, creativity, and innovation. But we also believe that government must protect the weak, must manage national resources well, must fight corruption, and invest in the long-term needs of the people and the nation. That is what development for the benefit of people means to Indonesia. The greatest good for the greatest many.

Development cannot only benefit the few. Development must be measured at the dinner table of ordinary families. Whether children receive nutritious food, whether farmers can obtain fertilizer and sell their produce at fair prices, whether families can live in decent homes, whether young people can find productive work, and whether electricity can reach every home in every village. This is why Indonesia is providing free nutritional meals for all our children and for their pregnant mothers. This is why we are pursuing food self-sufficiency and energy security. This is why we are accelerating downstream industrialization so that our natural resources can create industry skills and good jobs at home. This is why we seek faster economic growth. Not growth just for growth’s sake, but growth that can lift millions of people out of poverty into dignity.

This forum is essentially asking the same fundamental question as the one asked by my people to me. How can the great wealth of a region translate into better life for the people who live there?

The economies of Indonesia and Russia are not mirror image, I believe that is precisely why they can fit to work together. Russia has wheat, fertilizer, energy, science, advanced engineering. Indonesia has palm oil, fisheries, coffee, rubber, textiles, furniture, consumer goods, and a young workforce, and a gateway to the 680 million people of ASEAN. One side’s strength can answer the other side’s needs. This is the foundation of fair and durable trade.

The results are already visible. Last year, in 2025, our bilateral trade approached five billion USD. An increase of 21.7 percent compared to one year before that, 2024. And, an increase of 33.7 percent compared to 2023. This achievement is just the beginning. It is not a ceiling.

Here, in this forum, I propose that Indonesia and Russia set clear challenge to ourselves to double our trade within the first review period of the Indonesian-Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) Free Trade Agreement. This rise will be driven by complementary economies. The expected entry into force of the Indonesia-EAEU free trade agreement in early 2027, and perhaps, most importantly, closer ties between our business communities.

For Eurasian businesses, Indonesia is a natural entry point to ASEAN. We are the region’s largest market and the hub of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP. And now, a free trade partner.

Southeast Asia was not always peaceful. Our region experienced conflict, tension, deep differences. But then, our leaders recognized that poverty, limited healthcare and education, inadequate infrastructure, and the need to create opportunity were challenges larger than anyone of us. So, ASEAN chose consultation over confrontation. Cooperation over division.

For almost six decades, that choice has created a peace dividend. Farmers can produce. Factories can operate. Ships can sail. Businesses can invest. Children can go to school. Families can plan for the future. Indonesia now invites Russia and every EAEU member to help extend that peace dividend by connecting Eurasia more closely with Southeast Asia.

The Indonesia-EAEU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed in St. Petersburg on 21 December 2025 by Indonesia, the Union, its five member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and the Eurasian Economic Commission. It commits my country and the EAEU to eliminate or reduce duties on 11,882 tariff lines. More than 90 percent of all goods being traded. Indonesia has completed parliamentary approval of this FTA, and last July I have signed the Presidential Regulation of Ratification.

Let me state our intention plainly. Indonesia wants this agreement in force and in use, as soon as the exchange of notification allows. I respectfully call on every EAEU member state to complete its internal procedures so that we can make use of this agreement as soon as possible.

This agreement is South-South trade architecture. It opens five markets to Indonesian producers and gives Eurasian producers access to more than 290 million Indonesian consumers. Indonesian business delegations are here today to conclude pilot shipments, name buyers, secure logistics and settle compliant payment arrangements that make use of this FTA. It is my intent that when the tariff schedule opens, the goods, routes, and contracts must already be in place. This forum must become the marketplace of the agreement.

Excellencies,

Russian and Indonesian business delegations are moving intensively in many directions. Each visit produces introductions, leads, trusts, transactions, and relationships. Since St. Petersburg last year, this circle of trust has grown. The task before us is to turn personal trust to institutional trust. Clear rules, reliable payments, predictable logistics, and agreements that survive changes of officials.

I believe in this forum we can establish competitive direct shipping between Vladivostok and Indonesia with predictable schedules, costs, insurance, and cargo in both directions. And, let us be equally practical about people. Direct air links would bring Russian visitors to Indonesia and Indonesian visitors to the beauty of the Russian Far East. Ships move goods, aircrafts move friendship.

Excellencies,

Our future cooperation can be much larger than trade in goods. In energy, Indonesia welcomes Russian cooperation that raises the productivity of oil and gas exploration, production, and processing. We seek knowledge and investment in renewable energy, smart grids, and peaceful nuclear power including modular and full-scale technologies under the highest safety standards and international safeguards. In food security we see opportunities in working with Russia on agricultural technology, superior seeds, and livestock breeding, farm mechanization, food processing, and the joint production of fertilizer. In industrialization we should find value together. Indonesia welcomes partnerships in downstream processing and in the goods our citizens use every day. Food, household products, clothing, furniture, pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics. We also welcome Russia-Indonesia cooperation in space, higher education, and transport. So I say directly to Russian businesses, come to Indonesia, work with us, produce with us, let us build industries together, let us create value together. And, from Indonesia let us reach the wider markets of ASEAN and the Indo-Pacific together.

Indonesia has established Danantara, Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund, with one trillion USD of assets under management. Danantara could act as a bridge where Russian and Indonesian capital markets and strategic goals could meet. Danantara and the sovereign wealth fund of Russia, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (the RDIF) can move from identifying possibilities to financing bankable projects. Every agreement announced must specify its value financing and delivery milestones.

Distinguished Participants,

We meet at a difficult moment. Today, trade many times are used as a weapon. Supply chains are withdrawn by suspicion. Finance is divided by geography. Precisely because the world is fragmenting every bridge built here in food, energy, science, logistics, and trade is a practical answer.

In global finance, resilience requires more than one functioning system. We should not rely on a single financial architecture because if one system is disrupted another must remain able to facilitate the flow of funds that keeps trade moving. Without reliable payment and settlement channels, trade itself can be paralyzed. This is not about replacing one system with another, but about ensuring that another global financial system can operate alongside existing arrangements to preserve continuity, stability, and confidence in international trade. Indonesia’s foreign policy is free and active. We determine our own national interest, and we want to contribute actively to peace.

At SPIEF last year, I said to you, Indonesia does not want to join any military alliance, but we seek to join economic alliance. Our FTA within the Eurasian Economic Union is exactly that, not an alliance against anyone, but a partnership for the prosperity of everyone.

Indonesia works to the east, west, north, and south as a sovereign and equal partner. For us, 1,000 friends are too few, one enemy is too many. We come to St. Petersburg to make friends, and now we come to Vladivostok to turn the friendship into pragmatic results.

The Global South is not a new block. It is a constituency for fairness, for a fair share of prosperity, and a fair voice in writing global rules. Our position is clear and consistent. Indonesia stands ready to support every sincere effort towards adjust and lasting peace wherever conflict persists.

Indonesia and Russia have been friends for many decades. Indonesia remembers the support of the then Soviet Union during the early years of our young republic. We remember that history and we never forget our friends. But, friendship cannot live only in history. Our generation must have the courage to write a new chapter. Let us be equal, let us be independent, let us work together mutually for the benefit of both our countries, and let us be measured by what our efforts can deliver for our peoples.

Peace is not separate from development. Hunger, unemployment, injustice, and humiliation are the raw materials of conflict. A Far East that provides opportunity, countries that feed its children, and an Asia-Pacific that trades openly are real and durable contributions to peace. Sovereignty makes peace possible, peace makes development possible, and development for the benefit of people makes the peace endure. That is why the theme of this forum is not merely an economic slogan, it actually is a doctrine of security.

Participants;

Distinguished Excellencies;

I understand that the Russian people have a saying, “Один в поле не воин” (odin v pole ne voin). There can be no victory if you fight alone. In Indonesia we have the same saying, we say “gotong royong”. Any heavy burden becomes light when we carry it together. We have different languages, but we have the same ancient wisdom from our forefathers.

Everything we have discussed today, the tariff lines covered by FTA, transport corridors, payment systems, industrial projects, exists for one reason, so that a fisherman in Indonesia and a shipbuilder in Russia can each look at their children and believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Our young people will not ask which block we belong to. They will ask what we built for their future. Let us build the direct shipping route. Let us open the direct flight. Let us make our free trade agreement work from its very first day. Let us double our trade. Let us produce food, fertilizer, energy, medicine, technology together. Let our sovereign wealth funds, Danantara and the RDIF, finance strategic projects together. And let us ensure that every agreement announced in Vladivostok produces a result that our people can see and can feel.

Let it be said of this forum that in a season when some others were building walls, we built bridges. And, let it be said of our generation that in difficult times, we chose cooperation, development for the benefit of our people. We chose the greatest good for the greatest many and by doing so, we helped to build lasting peace and prosperity.

Thank you,
Terima kasih,
Спасибо большое.

Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh,
Syalom,
Salve,
May peace be upon us all.

Thank you.