Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto told Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi that his country would speed up the work on the upgraded bilateral trade pact, which would let Indonesian tuna products “swim” to Tokyo at zero tariffs.

Prabowo is on his first-ever state visit to Tokyo as the ex-army general wants to beef up economic ties.

In a joint press conference, Prabowo said he was looking forward to the new Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (IJEPA). Both countries have had this trade accord since July 2008. In 2024, they agreed to upgrade the pact by scrapping tariff lines on Indonesia’s processed tuna and skipjack products, thereby possibly boosting Japan’s appetite for the fishery imports.

“We, Indonesia, will expedite the ratification and implementation of the IJEPA protocol amendments. We hope we can finish this quickly,” Prabowo told Takaichi in a televised briefing on Tuesday.

Prabowo did not go into more details on the IJEPA, including a hard-set timeline of when Jakarta would turn the amendments into law. However, he had invited Takaichi on a state visit to Jakarta. The last time a Japanese leader visited Jakarta was in January 2025, when Takaichi’s predecessor Shigeru Ishiba came.

A day prior to the Takaichi meeting, Prabowo had briefed Japanese businessmen on where Indonesia is heading from an economic front. He said that the IJEPA upgrades would "open new opportunities".

Indonesia-Japan trade neared $43.8 billion in 2025. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy registered almost $18.1 in surplus. Indonesia’s biggest Japan-bound exports were mineral fuels (almost $2.9 billion), electrical machinery ($1.6 billion), and nickel ($1.2 billion) over the same year, according to Indonesia’s Trade Ministry. The Fishery Ministry reported that Indonesian canned tuna, skipjacks, and other non-canned products were originally subject to a 9.6% export duty when shipped to Japan.

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