Jakarta. Vietnam wants Indonesia to open up greater access to its agricultural products as both countries agree to boost trade and strengthen food security.

Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong hosted his Indonesian counterpart Joko “Jokowi” Widodo for some trade-focused talks in Hanoi on Friday. During the meeting, Thuong nudged Jokowi into letting more Vietnamese agricultural products into the country.

“Vietnam asks Indonesia to make it easier for Vietnamese agricultural products … to enter the Indonesian market,” Thuong said in his joint press statement, speaking before Jokowi.

The Indonesian leader did not specifically talk about the Vietnamese agricultural products during his turn to give a statement. However, Jokowi said both leaders had agreed on bolstering cooperation on food security, particularly on agriculture and fishery.

“The signing of the memorandum of understanding on fishery marks a huge momentum to spur collaboration and investment in this field,” Jokowi said.

Government data shows Indonesia-Vietnam trade totaled $13.3 billion in 2022. The two-way trade gave Indonesia a surplus of $3.7 billion. Bilateral trade reached $11.7 billion in January-November 2023, registering a $2.1 billion surplus for Indonesia. In 2022, Jokowi and then Vietnamese president Nguyen Xuan Phuc agreed to work towards achieving $15 billion in bilateral trade by 2028.

Rice is among the main Vietnamese agricultural exports.

Last October, then-acting Agricultural Minister Arief Prasetyo Adi said the government would import 1.5 million tons of rice, mostly from Vietnam and Thailand. Later that month, about 24,000 tons of Vietnamese rice arrived in Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok port. Budi Waseso, the president director of the state logistics agency Bulog, said at the time that the imported rice was to keep supply under control over the coming months.

The Vietnamese customs department reported last October that Vietnam exported 884,177 tons of rice to Indonesia in the first nine months of 2023, totaling $462 million in value, according to an article published by the Vietnamese Agricultural Ministry.

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