Indonesia, Iran Sign Preferential Trade Agreement

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, left, speaks to journalists as Indonesian President Joko Widodo listens during a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (AP)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, left, speaks to journalists as Indonesian President Joko Widodo listens during a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (AP)
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Indonesia, Iran Sign Preferential Trade Agreement

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, left, speaks to journalists as Indonesian President Joko Widodo listens during a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (AP)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, left, speaks to journalists as Indonesian President Joko Widodo listens during a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (AP)

The leaders of Indonesia and Iran on Tuesday signed a preferential trade agreement to expand economic relations during an official visit by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Jakarta.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, speaking after the signing as streamed online by his cabinet secretariat, hoped the agreement “would increase trade between Indonesia and Iran” but did not provide details.

After signing 10 agreements at the Bogor Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java, Widodo told media he hoped the PTA would increase transactions between Indonesia and Iran, reported AFP.

The agreement would give Indonesia greater access to Iranian markets, particularly with regard to its exports of vegetable oil, cocoa, coffee and tobacco, said the Indonesian Trade Ministry.

For his part, Raisi, who is on his first official visit to the archipelago nation, said that Iran and Indonesia have decided to increase their annual trade ties to $20 billion while seeking to use national currencies to settle trade payments.

“We believe that sanctions and threats cannot stop us in any way from cooperation and communication with neighboring countries, Muslim nations and countries that are aligned with us,” Raisi said.

Indonesian trade ministry official Djatmiko Bris Witjaksono said on Tuesday the two countries had agreed on a “countertrade” scheme in which goods and services can be exchanged “without being constrained by scarcity or currency difficulties.”

Two-way trade between the nations currently amounts to around $250 million, with the Southeast Asian country recording about a $200 million surplus, according to the Indonesian trade ministry.

Djatmiko told reporters on Monday Indonesia is keen to boost trade with the Middle East and the surrounding region.

“Iran could be a gateway to the surrounding region, such as Central Asia ... or even to Türkiye because we do not have any trade deal with Türkiye yet,” he said.

Under Tuesday's agreement, Iran would give Indonesia greater access to products like processed food and pharmaceuticals, textile, palm oil, coffee and tea, while Indonesia will lower tariffs for Iran's oil and chemical products, metals and some dairy products.

Raisi's visit comes as ties between Iran and the West have become increasingly strained following the Iranian security forces' violent crackdown on protests against the country's clerical elite after the death of a Kurdish woman in custody of the morality police last year.

Several countries, including the US, have imposed broad sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program and alleged rights violations.

This week, the EU imposed the eighth round of sanctions over Tehran's brutal crackdown on protests over the death of Mahsa Amini.

Trade between Indonesia and Iran dropped from $715.5 million to $141.6 million in 2019 after the US imposed its sanctions.



Iran's President Visits Those Injured in Port Explosion that Killed at Least 28 People

A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)
A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)
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Iran's President Visits Those Injured in Port Explosion that Killed at Least 28 People

A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)
A helicopter drops water on the fire, Sunday, April 27, 2025, after a massive explosion and fire rocked a port near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran on Saturday. (AP Photo/Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim News)

Iran's president visited those injured Sunday in a huge explosion that rocked one of the Islamic Republic's main ports, a facility purportedly linked to an earlier delivery of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant.

The visit by President Masoud Pezeshkian came as the toll from Saturday's blast at the Shahid Rajaei port outside of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran's Hormozgan province rose to 28 killed and about 1,000 others injured.

Iranian state television described the fire as being under control, saying emergency workers hoped that it would be fully extinguished later Sunday. Overnight, helicopters and heavy cargo aircraft flew repeated sorties over the burning port, dumping seawater on the site, The AP news reported.

Pir Hossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Red Crescent society offered the death toll and number of injured in a statement carried by an Iranian government website, saying that only 190 of the injured remained hospitalized on Sunday. The provincial governor declared three days of mourning.

Private security firm Ambrey says the port received missile fuel chemical in March. It was part of a shipment of ammonium perchlorate from China by two vessels to Iran, first reported in January by the Financial Times. The chemical used to make solid propellant for rockets was going to be used to replenish Iran’s missile stocks, which had been depleted by its direct attacks on Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ship-tracking data analyzed by The AP put one of the vessels believed to be carrying the chemical in the vicinity in March, as Ambrey said.

“The fire was reportedly the result of improper handling of a shipment of solid fuel intended for use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” Ambrey said.

In a first reaction on Sunday, Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Reza Talaeinik denied that missile fuel had been imported through the port.

“No sort of imported and exporting consignment for fuel or military application was (or) is in the site of the port,” he told state television by telephone. He called foreign reports on the missile fuel baseless — but offered no explanation for what material detonated with such incredible force at the site. Talaeinik promised authorities would offer more information later.

It’s unclear why Iran wouldn’t have moved the chemicals from the port, particularly after the Beirut port blast in 2020. That explosion, caused by the ignition of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, killed more than 200 people and injured more than 6,000 others. However, Israel did target Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses industrial mixers to create solid fuel — meaning potentially that it had no place to process the chemical.

Social media footage of the explosion on Saturday at Shahid Rajaei saw reddish-hued smoke rising from the fire just before the detonation. That suggests a chemical compound being involved in the blast, like in the Beirut explosion.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed several emergency aircraft to Bandar Abbas to provide assistance, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported.