When we talk about Indonesian exports to Saudi Arabia, palm oil leads the picture. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil with close to 60% of global output, and its shipments cover a large part of the Saudi market’s edible oil needs.

Figures that sum up the picture

Indonesian exports to Saudi Arabia reached around USD 2.88 billion in 2024, with palm oil and its derivatives making up the largest share. That concentration in a single commodity carries two contradictory readings.

The first is positive: an established commodity means the shipping, clearance and distribution channels between the two countries are built and tested, and that the commercial relationship is not a new experiment but a standing reality of meaningful size.

The second is a warning: depending on one commodity leaves the trade balance hostage to its global price swings, and means the real volume of exchange in every other sector is far smaller than the headline figure suggests.

The opportunity lies precisely in the second reading: the sectors not yet drawn on are where competition is lighter and margins are better.

Beyond palm oil

Indonesia exports to the world a long list of goods that have not taken their share of the Saudi market: wooden furniture, textiles and clothing, rubber and its products, paper and pulp, coffee, cocoa and spices, fish and seafood, and household goods and ceramics.

Many of these sectors are globally competitive on quality and price, and their absence from the Saudi market is not a weakness of the product but the absence of channels to introduce and distribute it.

This is precisely where a business council’s role sits: not in selling the product, but in surfacing hidden demand and connecting it to available supply. A Saudi importer looking for a dependable furniture supplier may not think of Indonesia at all, and an Indonesian factory may not know the size of Saudi demand.

The reverse opportunity: Saudi exports to Indonesia

The trade balance between the two countries does not run one way, and the Saudi opportunity in the Indonesian market is real and growing.

Petrochemicals, plastics and polymers find in Indonesia a vast market feeding its expanding manufacturing industries. Fertilisers serve an agricultural sector that is the backbone of the Indonesian economy. Building materials meet the needs of wide infrastructure programmes.

To that a less obvious but promising dimension is added: services. Saudi expertise in managing large projects, energy and financial services is exportable, and a market of 280 million people needs it.

How do you read the opportunity in your sector?

Start with a specific question: what does Saudi Arabia import today from other countries that Indonesia produces at competitive quality? Answering that reveals substitution opportunities, the easiest kind, because demand is proven and only the source needs to change.

Then ask the reverse: what does Indonesia import that Saudi Arabia produces? These are the relatively safe export opportunities, because they do not bet on creating new demand.

Want more precise data on how your commodity moves between the two countries? The Saudi-Indonesian Business Council helps you read the market and choose a partner.