Indonesia and Singapore Agree to Cooperate in Keeping Malacca Strait Open to All

Indonesia and Singapore held a summit and agreed to cooperate in ensuring that the Malacca Strait, a vital global maritime traffic route, remains safe and open to all.

According to reports from Singaporean daily The Straits Times and other sources on July 7 (local time), Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced this agreement following their annual summit in Jakarta the previous day.

The two leaders emphasized that they would continue to work with Malaysia and Thailand to ensure that the Malacca Strait remains "open and accessible to all who need access" in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

President Prabowo stated, "We have a common interest in ensuring that the Malacca Strait remains a free passage for all parties," adding, "We must maintain the security and peace of the strait, as well as protect it from environmental pollution, accidents, robbery, and piracy."

Prime Minister Wong noted that the recent war in the Middle East has highlighted the importance of maintaining the functionality and safety of major trade routes, saying, "As littoral states bordering the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, Singapore and Indonesia have a close strategic relationship."

This announcement by the leaders of the two countries comes amid growing concerns over the safety of major maritime traffic routes, including the Malacca Strait, in the wake of the war involving Iran.

Although passage through the Strait of Hormuz was closed following the outbreak of the war in late February and has recently resumed due to a ceasefire, it is reported that Iran has not abandoned its claims to collect transit fees for the strait during negotiations with the United States to end the war.

Against this backdrop, Indonesian Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa briefly mentioned the possibility of imposing transit fees on the Malacca Strait as an idea back in April, which faced backlash from the governments of Singapore and Malaysia as well as international concern, eventually leading the Indonesian side to retract the remark.

The Malacca Strait is a maritime shipping route approximately 900 km long that passes between the Malay Peninsula, which includes Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

As the shortest route connecting East Asia—including South Korea, China, and Japan—with India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, it is used by more than 200 ships every day, twice the volume of the Strait of Hormuz, and accounts for approximately one-fourth of global trade volume.

According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), approximately 29% of the world's seaborne oil shipments passed through the Malacca Strait in the first half of last year.

However, the strait is considered a highly congested bottleneck, as its narrowest point is only 2.7 km wide and its average depth is just 25 meters, leaving a very limited channel for large vessels to navigate.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.