Indonesia is looking to improve trade flows of potash with Belarus after a meeting last week between Indonesian foreign minister Sugiono and the Belarusian ambassador to Jakarta.
Sugiono intends to enhance "co-operation in potash" with Belarus to support the Indonesian government's goal of "achieving national food security", the foreign ministry said in an official statement.
Belarus is one of the world's largest exporters of potash fertilizer. State-owned producer Belaruskali exported more than 10mn t of potash last year.
Indonesia is the largest importer of potash in southeast Asia and applies most of the fertilizer to the country's large palm oil plantations. Indonesia sourced almost a fifth of its total MOP imports from Belarus last year. Indonesia imported 245,000t of MOP from Belarus last year, in addition to roughly 406,000t of MOP from Uzbekistan, the majority of which is likely to be from Belarus, GTT data show. In the first four months of this year, MOP imports from Belarus and Uzbekistan totalled about 331,000t.
Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has outlined food security as a core objective of his government. Since coming to power in October, his administration has introduced plans to increase agricultural output by converting some of the country's swamplands into rice fields.
