Opinion | What Modi's Jakarta Visit Means For The Small Seller And The Small Buyer

Updated: Jul 06, 2026 14:32 pm IST Published On Jul 06, 2026 14:30 pm IST Last Updated On Jul 06, 2026 14:32 pm IST

Published On Jul 06, 2026 14:30 pm IST

Last Updated On Jul 06, 2026 14:32 pm IST

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi lands in Jakarta on July 7, the cameras will fixate on the ceremonial handshakes, the trade communiques, the strategic-partnership language that state visits are built to produce. But the piece of this relationship most likely to change outcomes for a warung owner in Yogyakarta or a UMKM textile seller in Solo is already quietly under construction, and it has a name: the Indonesia Open Network.

This visit reciprocates President Prabowo Subianto's state visit to India in January 2025, when he was chief guest at India's Republic Day celebrations. That trip produced, alongside agreements on defence, trade, and pharmaceuticals, a formal MoU on Cooperation in Digital Development between the two governments. It was not a symbolic gesture. When Foreign Minister Sugiono met India's External Affairs Minister Jaishankar in New Delhi in June for the eighth India-Indonesia Joint Commission Meeting, both governments' own readouts confirmed digital cooperation as a standing agenda item, alongside trade, maritime security, and people-to-people ties, with Indian visitor arrivals to Indonesia already touching roughly half a million a year.

The digital-development MoU has already produced something concrete. In February 2026, Indonesia's Ministry for MSMEs, with the Ministry of Communications and Digital, launched the Indonesia Open Network (ION) an open-protocol digital commerce network modeled on the design philosophy behind India's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Its advisory council is a deliberate India-Indonesia bridge: Indonesian business and technology leaders including APINDO chairman Shinta Kamdani, PII chairman Ilham Habibie, and former Communications Minister Rudiantara, sitting alongside two people who built ONDC from its earliest days, its former........

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