Indonesia and Singapore are committed to keeping the Strait of Malacca open and accessible to all vessels, the leaders of the two nations said yesterday, as they met for the second Singapore-Indonesia Leaders’ Retreat in Jakarta.
Speaking at a joint press conference after the meeting, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said that the two nations had reaffirmed their shared position on the waterway, which connects the Indian and Pacific oceans.
“Indonesia and Singapore are countries that directly border one another in the Strait of Malacca. We have a shared interest in maintaining the Strait of Malacca as a passage that is free for all parties,” he said, as per the Straits Times. “We must preserve security and peace in the strait, and also, of course, protect it from pollution, accidents, and from robbery or piracy.”
Prabowo added that Indonesia would continue coordinating with Malaysia and Thailand to ensure that the Strait would “always remain open to all, safe, and accessible to anyone who requires access,” in accordance with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong affirmed Prabowo’s comments, stating that recent events in the Middle East, which had obstructed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, had only underscored the importance of keeping Malacca free and secure. On this question, he said that Singapore and Indonesia are “strategically aligned.”
“We both share an interest in upholding navigational rights and freedoms, and keeping sea lines of communication open to all, including the unimpeded rights of transit passage of vessels, in accordance with UNCLOS, which is also customary law,” he said.
Prabowo’s comments come after Indonesian Foreign Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa in April raised the idea of imposing a levy on ships passing through the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Citing Iran’s plan to charge a “toll” in the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of its war with the United States and Israel, he said that a similar toll in the Malacca Strait could generate significant economic value, if it were implemented cooperatively among the three states bordering the Strait.
“If we split it three ways – Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore – it could be quite substantial,” he said, noting that Indonesia’s stretch of the Strait was “the largest and the longest.”
While it was unclear how serious his suggestion was, it immediately prompted expressions of concern from around the region, including from Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.
Prabowo’s statement appears to snuff out any small chance that Jakarta might attempt to monetize the Strait or push its neighbors to do so – something that will no doubt reassure Singaporean leaders.
Also yesterday, Wong and Prabowo announced a number of agreements intended to strengthen the economic relations between the two nations. The two leaders presided over the signing of 26 “tangible and concrete achievements in various fields,” the two leaders said in a joint statement. This included 18 government-to-government cooperation agreements and eight business-to-business agreements.
Among the most important was the signing of an MoU between the new Indonesian sovereign wealth fund Danantara and Singapore’s Keppel Electric, Sembcorp Industries, and Singapore Energy Interconnections, on the expansion of the cross-border electricity trade. In a joint statement, Danantara and Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said that the MoU would “explore potential collaboration on offtake of imported low-carbon electricity” and help resolve “commercial and technical issues relating to cross-border interconnector development.”
Indonesia’s Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia later told reporters that Singapore and Indonesia were currently conducting price negotiations for the deal and that he thought there would be “be a breakthrough soon,” he said. “We want everybody to reap the benefits, reaching a win-win solution for both,” he added.
