China Eyes Investment in Indonesia’s Dairy Industry: A Push for Food Self-Sufficiency?
Jakarta, 25 May 2025 – A significant Indonesia dairy investment is on the horizon. Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Sudaryono, revealed China’s plans for substantial capital injection into the nation’s dairy processing and cattle farming sectors. This crucial development is a key agenda item during Prime Minister Li Qiang’s visit to Indonesia. His visit concludes on Monday, May 26, 2025.
This collaboration aims to bring fresh momentum to national food security. Sudaryono explained the meeting’s focus: discussing mutually beneficial reciprocal trade and investment cooperation. “China currently focuses on investing in the dairy sector,” he stated. “They plan to build dairy processing plants. In the future, they commit to building dairy cattle farms in Indonesia.” Sudaryono made these remarks at the Indonesia-China Business Reception 2025 on Saturday evening, May 24, 2025.
Boosting Indonesia Dairy Investment for Self-Sufficiency
The specific value of this Indonesia dairy investment remains undisclosed. However, Sudaryono claims the prospective Chinese investor is quite significant. The government will soon request their investment commitment. “The factory investment itself might not be too large,” Sudaryono clarified. “But if they also bring live cattle and so on, I think it will be substantial.”
Achieving food self-sufficiency, especially for dairy and beef, presents a considerable challenge. Indonesia still relies heavily on importing breeding cattle. “We desire to achieve dairy self-sufficiency in the future,” Sudaryono emphasized.
The government aims to bring in a total of 2 million live cattle within the next 5 years. These will meet both meat and dairy needs. For this year alone, the target for imported breeding cattle reaches 200,000 head.
“Once the 2 million live cattle arrive, we ask them [China] to also prepare the processing industry,” Sudaryono added. “This makes it our national product. It also strengthens our food independence.”
Addressing Unmet Domestic Dairy Demand
Ministry of Agriculture data shows Indonesia’s per capita consumption of milk and dairy products was 16.29 kg/year (2017-2020). Domestic milk production, however, cannot meet demand. During the same period, domestic production met only 3.86 million tons of a total 17.34 million tons needed. This represents about 22.26% of the demand. Nearly 80% of national milk demand therefore requires imports.
This significant Indonesia dairy investment from China aims to reduce import dependency. It will help realize Indonesia’s goal of dairy self-sufficiency.
