Indonesia PMK 68/2025 — Cocoa Bean Export Duty Cut to a 0–7.5% Tiered Schedule

Mechanism

PMK 68/2025 amends the export-duty reference-price and tariff-rate grid for cocoa beans that was previously set under PMK No. 38/2024 ("Penetapan Barang Ekspor yang Dikenakan Bea Keluar dan Tarif Bea Keluar"). Indonesian cocoa export duty is structured as a price-tiered ad-valorem schedule: the duty rate charged on a given shipment depends on which international reference-price bracket the prevailing cocoa price falls into. PMK 68/2025 compresses the schedule downward across brackets — Indonesian financial and tax press (Bisnis Indonesia, DDTC News, kumparan) reported Minister Purbaya framing the change as relief for cocoa farmers and exporters after a period of extreme global cocoa price volatility, with the top bracket duty cut to 7.5% and the US$2,000–2,750/tonne bracket cut from 5% to 2.5%. Collection under the new schedule started 22 October 2025, roughly a week after the ministerial signature, consistent with the short implementation lag typical of Kemenkeu export- duty PMKs (gazettal followed by a customs-systems cutover).

The same instrument raised the export duty on pine resin (getah pinus) to 25% — a separate, unrelated forestry-sector change bundled into the same omnibus PMK, not covered by this filing's scope (target_materials here is limited to cocoa).

Indonesia is one of the world's top cocoa bean producers (roughly 150,000–200,000 tonnes/year, concentrated in Sulawesi), though domestic output has declined over the past decade due to aging trees and disease pressure, making the country a net cocoa importer overall despite retaining bean exports from surplus regions. Malaysia (via grinders such as Guan Chong Berhad and JB Cocoa) is a major destination for Indonesian bean exports, feeding Malaysia's large cocoa-processing/grinding industry — hence Global Trade Alert's flag of Malaysia as an affected trading partner.

Downstream implications

• Indonesian smallholder cocoa farmers and exporters: Lower duty burden improves realised

export prices at a time of historically elevated global cocoa reference prices, partially offsetting years of declining Indonesian bean output.

• Malaysian cocoa grinders (Guan Chong, JB Cocoa): Marginally cheaper access to Indonesian bean

supply, reinforcing Malaysia's position as a regional grinding/processing hub for Southeast Asian cocoa.

• Contrast with Indonesia's mineral hilirisasi instrument family: Unlike the nickel/bauxite/copper/

gold export-restriction cluster, this is a duty-easing measure — Indonesia does not have a comparable downstreaming/processing-capture policy for cocoa (there is no significant domestic grinding industry to protect), so the incentive logic runs toward supporting upstream growers rather than capturing value-add domestically.

Open questions

• Whether the duty cut meaningfully affects planted area / replanting incentives given Indonesia's

cocoa bean output has been trending down independent of trade-tax settings (disease, aging trees, land-use competition with palm oil).

• Full bracket-by-bracket old-vs-new rate table was not confirmed beyond the reported top bracket

(7.5%) and the US$2,000–2,750/tonne bracket (5%→2.5%) — worth revisiting if Kemenkeu publishes the full PMK 68/2025 text with legible tables.

• Whether PMK 69/2025 (referenced by Global Trade Alert as the implementing regulation) contains

additional procedural detail on the 22 October 2025 collection start date.