Jakarta will bring the agreements into force by presidential regulation, a lighter instrument than the statutes used for RCEP and the Australia pact.
A parliamentary commission in Jakarta approved the ratification of four trade agreements on Tuesday, clearing the way for Indonesia to bring into force a free trade deal with the five-member Eurasian Economic Union that its trade ministry expects to add as much as $2.89bn to annual exports.
Commission VI of the House of Representatives signed off on the Indonesia-EAEU free trade agreement alongside three Asean instruments: the second protocol amending the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement, the upgrade protocol to the ASEAN-China free trade area, and the Asean food safety regulatory framework agreement.
Budi Santoso, trade minister, told the commission that the agreements would be given effect through presidential regulations rather than legislation, which he described as a way of accelerating implementation. He called trade agreements “strategic instruments” for national competitiveness at a time of geopolitical disruption.
Under the Eurasian agreement, signed in St Petersburg on December 21 2025, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan will eliminate or reduce duties on 11,882 tariff lines, or 90.5 per cent of their schedules. Indonesia reciprocates on 10,257 lines, 89.9 per cent of its own, concentrated in industrial inputs and raw materials including wheat, fertiliser, pharmaceuticals, basic chemicals, dairy, paper and pulp.
Palm oil and its derivatives head the list of Indonesian products the ministry expects to benefit, followed by natural rubber, coffee, fisheries products, textiles, footwear, furniture, machinery and electrical equipment, and wood products.
The macroeconomic case is more modest than the rhetoric around it. Against a market the minister described as worth $3tn, the ministry’s own modelling puts the national welfare gain at $69.98mn and the effect on real GDP at 0.0059 per cent. The value lies in the corridor rather than the aggregate: Jakarta is positioning the union as a transit route into Central Asia, west Asia and eastern Europe.
Ratification on the other side is further advanced. Belarus completed its procedures before President Prabowo Subianto hosted Alexander Lukashenko in Jakarta on July 2, and Alexei Overchuk, Russian deputy prime minister, said in June that the union expected to finish its side within the year. The bloc’s agreement with Mongolia entered into force on July 22. Indonesian officials have pointed to late 2026 or 2027 for implementation.
The ASEAN instruments are less consequential individually but broader in reach. The second ATIGA protocol lifts the bloc’s liberalisation commitment to 98.76 per cent and adds chapters on economic and technical cooperation and on smaller enterprises. Indonesian exporters already use the scheme more intensively than their neighbours, claiming preference on 82.73 per cent of eligible trade in 2024 against an Asean average of 55.89 per cent.
The ASEAN-China upgrade protocol, signed at the bloc’s summit in Kuala Lumpur on October 28 2025, leaves existing market access untouched. Its commitments run to the digital and green economies, trade facilitation, technical standards and supply chain connectivity. Bilateral trade between Indonesia and China reached $154.6bn in 2025.
The food safety framework, the least discussed of the four, may prove the most operationally significant for exporters. It sets the coordination machinery for implementing the Asean food safety policy across the supply chain, harmonising requirements that currently vary by member state. The ministry estimates it will improve Indonesia’s food sector trade balance by $634.83mn and deliver welfare gains of $252.17mn.
The timing places the Eurasian agreement alongside a second track. Brussels submitted the text of its own comprehensive economic partnership with Indonesia to the Council on June 29, with entry into force targeted for the start of 2027. If both hold to schedule, Indonesian palm oil will acquire preferential access to two large markets within roughly a year of each other — one of which is simultaneously tightening its deforestation rules on the same commodity.