Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was one of Putin’s guests of honor at the Eastern Economic Forum. It was their fifth meeting in two years. Prabowo began his speech by highlighting their economic complementarities, especially Indonesia’s role as Russia’s “gateway to the 680 million people of ASEAN”, before citing some statistics. Importantly, “last year, in 2025, our bilateral trade approached $5 billion – an increase of 21.7 percent compared to 2024, and an increase of 33.7 percent compared to 2023.”
Prabowo wants to “double our trade within the first review period of the Indonesia-Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement.” He thus called on the bloc to ratify it as soon as possible. The reason is that “Indonesian business delegations are here today to conclude pilot shipments, name buyers, secure logistics, and settle compliance and 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.”
From Prabowo’s perspective, this goal can be achieved through comprehensive energy cooperation, which includes “renewable energy, smart grids, and peaceful nuclear power”. Other opportunities include comprehensive agricultural cooperation and everyday goods. All of this could be facilitated through direct shipping between Vladivostok and Indonesia “with predictable schedules, cost, insurance, and cargo in both directions.” “Space, higher education, and transport” partnerships are also promising.
As the means for facilitating his ambitious vision of doubling bilateral trade, Prabowo mentioned that “Indonesia has established Danantara – Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund with $1 trillion 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 (RDIF), can move from identifying possibilities to financing bankable projects.”
He then wrapped up his speech by referencing Indonesia’s balancing act and declaring that the Global South “is not a new bloc – it is a constituency for fairness, for a fair share of prosperity, and for a fair voice in writing global rules.” Prabowo also wisely noted that “Sovereignty makes peace possible. Peace makes development possible. And development for the benefit of people makes peace endure. That is why the theme of this forum is not merely an economic slogan. It is actually a doctrine of security.”
Prabowo’s speech proves the sincerity of his commitment to double bilateral trade since he clearly has a realistic plan in mind for bringing this about. The energy, logistics, and space aspects thereof constitute the first three out of five steps of the plan that was shared here earlier in the summer for implementing their strategic partnership. It can therefore be concluded that Indonesia and Russia don’t just have complementary economies; they also play complementary roles in one another’s balancing acts.
The end result is that they’re relying on each other to preemptively avert disproportionate dependence on China, which is their top trade partner, but this shouldn’t bother Beijing since they’re BRICS members and it’s arguably better for them to expand ties with each other for this purpose than with Washington. After all, their shared goal of multipolarity was never interpreted by Indonesia or Russia as a euphemism for a Sino-centric world order, but was always understood by them to mean a truly diverse world order.
