JAKARTA — Indonesia’s fisheries export machine is entering 2027 with its momentum broken, not by a collapse in demand but by the physical inability to move product. The archipelago’s seafood complex closed 2025 at a record $6.27 billion, up 5.38% from $5.95 billion in 2024, only to see the first quarter of 2026 deliver a brutal corrective: $983.1 million in exports through mid-March, a 21.71% collapse in value and a 41.35% plunge in volume year-on-year . The culprit was not a buyer strike but a Middle East geopolitical escalation that forced shipping route changes, spiked freight and container costs, and constrained mother-vessel availability just as Indonesia entered its peak Ramadan-Lebaran shipping window .
For foreign trading partners, the message from Jakarta is uncomfortable: Indonesia remains the indispensable supplier of shrimp, tuna, and cephalopods to the Indo-Pacific, but the supply chain that delivers those commodities is now hostage to forces far beyond the fishing ports of Sulawesi and Maluku. The record of 2025 is unlikely to be repeated in 2026, and the recovery trajectory into 2027 depends on whether logistics normalize before the next peak season.
The Three-Year Arc: From Pandemic Peak to Record, Then Air Pocket
The trajectory that brought Indonesia to its 2025 high was anything but linear. Exports peaked at $6.24 billion in 2022, then contracted sharply to $5.63 billion in 2023 as global demand softened and Ecuador and India intensified competition in the shrimp segment . The 2024 rebound to $5.95 billion—a 5.7% recovery—was powered by broad-based gains: tuna and skipjack rose 11.6%, squid and octopus jumped 14.6%, and crab climbed 14.7% . The trade surplus widened 9.1% as imports contracted nearly 20%, confirming the sector’s structural role as a net foreign-exchange earner .
The 2025 result of $6.27 billion exceeded even the 2022 peak. Shrimp contributed $1.87 billion, or roughly 30% of total value. Tuna and skipjack added $1.04 billion, followed by squid, cuttlefish, and octopus at $889.73 million, crab at $507.74 million, and seaweed at $315.62 million . The commodity mix remained concentrated in a handful of species, but the destination mix showed modest diversification: the United States absorbed $1.90 billion (31.9%), China $1.24 billion (20.9%), ASEAN $854.22 million (14.4%), Japan $598.74 million (10.1%), and the European Union $414.36 million (7.0%) .
Shrimp: The Franchise Commodity Flatlines
Shrimp’s dominance is both Indonesia’s greatest asset and its most exposed flank. The commodity generated $1.797 billion in 2025, an 11% increase over 2024, with the United States absorbing the majority of volume . But the volume data tells a more sobering story. Total 2025 shrimp exports reached 212,470 metric tons, a mere 2% gain over 2024, and remained below the 2023 level . Value growth reflected price and product-mix effects, not a meaningful expansion in throughput.
The 2026 picture deteriorated further. Through September, shrimp exports totaled 152,030 metric tons, down 6% year-on-year, with value at $1.315 billion, down 2% . The monthly pattern was volatile: January rose 10% in value, February fell 9%, March collapsed 22%, April rebounded 11%, May plunged 26%, and the summer months recovered modestly before September flattened . Raw vannamei shrimp, the volume workhorse, fell 10% year-to-date through September to 73,691 tons, while cooked and marinated product dropped 8% to 41,319 tons .
The structural constraints are now binding. Feed costs, disease outbreaks in intensive ponds, and the slow grind of sustainability certification have capped Indonesia’s ability to scale production in response to price signals. The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries has promoted the Aquafit 2.0 concept—measuring feed cost per kilogram of shrimp produced rather than feed price alone—but farm-level adoption remains uneven. For foreign buyers, the implication is that Indonesian shrimp supply cannot be relied upon to grow at historical rates without sustained investment in pond productivity.
Tuna and Cephalopods: Growth Engines Losing Thrust
Tuna and skipjack, Indonesia’s second-largest export category, generated approximately $1.04 billion in 2025, a marginal increase that masked significant volatility . An ARIMA-based forecast published in late 2025 projected the TCT (tuna, skipjack, mackerel) group reaching $991.65 million by 2026, but that estimate predated the first-quarter logistics shock and now appears optimistic . The first quarter of 2026 saw the TCT group contract 17.4% in volume, with frozen tuna and skipjack fillets and frozen shrimp products among the key drags on growth . Canned tuna, however, proved resilient, rising 8.5% in value and 7.7% in volume in Q1 2026, suggesting that processed product is weathering the storm better than raw material .
Squid, cuttlefish, and octopus—the sector’s most dynamic growth category through 2024—continued to expand in 2025, reaching $889.73 million . But the category’s momentum into 2026 is uncertain. The ASEAN bloc, which drove much of the 2024 surge with Vietnam up 62.4% and Thailand up 40.4%, remains the primary conduit for cephalopod trade, but regional demand is sensitive to Chinese processing and re-export flows . Any slowdown in Chinese consumption ripples through Vietnamese and Thai intermediary demand for Indonesian raw material.
Seaweed, once a growth story, has become a cautionary tale. Exports fell from $600.36 million in 2022 to $315.62 million in 2025, despite relatively stable volumes of around 240,000 to 250,000 tons annually . The collapse in value reflects a shift in product mix toward lower-value raw dried seaweed, with China absorbing 69.15% of exports at $218.24 million . The first quarter of 2026 added another data point: seaweed exports of $65.31 million, just 4.81% of total fisheries exports . The downstream carrageenan segment showed some resilience, but the raw material trade is increasingly a volume business with thin margins.
Market Concentration: The American Anchor and the China Hedge
The United States remained Indonesia’s largest seafood market in 2025, absorbing $1.90 billion, or 31.9% of total exports, a modest increase over 2024’s $1.907 billion . That stability is remarkable given the tariff turbulence of the period, but it also represents a concentration risk. Any shift in U.S. tariff policy toward Indonesian goods, or a food-safety enforcement action comparable to the 2025 cesium-137 scare, would reverberate through the entire sector.
China followed at $1.24 billion, up 9.2% from 2024, with the top commodities including frozen squid, Eucheuma cottonii seaweed, Gracilaria seaweed, frozen ribbonfish, and frozen croaker . In 2025, Indonesia exported 491,528 tons of fishery products to China across 1,080 commodities, and Jakarta secured export permits for additional fish-processing units, bringing the total registered to 638 . The Chinese market is large, growing, and increasingly accessible—but also politically contingent.
ASEAN delivered the strongest growth among major destinations in 2024, expanding 27.9%, with Vietnam and Thailand recording particularly sharp increases . That momentum carried into the top-ten destination list for early 2026, which remained unchanged: the United States, China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Singapore . The European Union, at $414.36 million in 2024, continued to grow on demand for tuna, squid, shrimp, and seaweed, but remains a secondary market relative to Asia and North America .
The first-quarter contraction of 2026 was severe enough to reset expectations for the full year. The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries attributed the decline to logistics, not demand, noting that applications for SMKHP—the quality and safety certificates required for export to 140 countries—continued to flow, indicating that buyers were still contracting for Indonesian product . But demand stability at the contract level does not translate into shipped volume when vessels are unavailable and routes are disrupted.
Whether 2026 delivers flat or negative growth depends on factors outside Jakarta’s control. Freight costs and route stability through the Red Sea and Middle East corridors will determine delivered prices. U.S. tariff policy toward Indonesian goods remains a wildcard. And the sector’s structural challenges—feed costs, disease, and certification—will determine whether Indonesia can defend market share against Ecuador, India, and Vietnam in shrimp, and against Vietnam and the Philippines in tuna.