Indonesia and Singapore Agree on Haze Task Force and Ministerial Hotline

Photo: ZKang123, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo of haze over Singapore on Oct. 5, 2026).

Indonesia and Singapore have agreed to set up a joint task force and a ministerial hotline on transboundary haze, the two countries’ foreign ministers announced on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, after weeks of smoke from forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan drifted across the region. The Indonesia Singapore haze agreement is a political commitment, not a treaty, and the ministers did not publish a timeline for the task force’s first meeting, CNA reported.

What the haze task force will do

Indonesian Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir and Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said the task force would share fire and land-use data and track companies linked to burning, including through financial flows. “Smoke can cross borders, so can money,” Balakrishnan said, according to CNA. Nasir said: “No border should shield those who profit from burning our forests.”

The hotline is meant to let ministers escalate fire outbreaks quickly rather than waiting for formal diplomatic channels. Singapore has a 2014 law, the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, that allows it to penalize companies abroad for causing haze in the city-state, but enforcing it has depended on cooperation from Jakarta.

Balakrishnan meets Prabowo

A day later, on Oct. 28, Balakrishnan met Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto at his residence in Hambalang, West Java, a meeting held at Singapore’s request, according to Indonesia’s Cabinet Secretariat. !Unverified claim, Cabinet Secretariat of Indonesia (Government of Indonesia) CNA said the two sides discussed haze along with other bilateral issues at what it described as high-level talks.

By the numbers: the gas dispute running in parallel

The haze talks overlap with a separate dispute over energy. Indonesia cut pipeline gas exports to Singapore by 31 million standard cubic feet per day starting Oct. 24, with 15 MMscfd from the Natuna fields and 16 MMscfd from Sumatra, The Business Times reported. That is less than 2% of Singapore’s total gas demand, according to the paper, so power supplies were not at risk.

Indonesian Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said the cut is allowed under existing contracts. Both governments have publicly cited the “sanctity of contract,” The Business Times reported, with Singapore stressing that agreements should be honored and Jakarta saying it is acting within their terms as it prioritizes domestic supply.

How bad this year’s haze has been

The forest-monitoring group Nusantara Atlas estimates that more than 1.9 million hectares burned in Indonesia between January and September, and says the haze is the worst in 11 years, CNA reported. That is close to the land area of New Jersey. Singapore publishes hourly air-quality readings on its National Environment Agency haze site.

The fires have become a domestic political issue in Indonesia too. Student protesters in Jakarta on Oct. 28 demanded that the government declare the fires a national disaster, as we report separately on our Southeast Asia news hub.

What to watch

ASEAN leaders meet in Manila on Nov. 10–12. Haze has been on the bloc’s agenda since its 2002 Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which all 10 original members have ratified. The rainy season, which usually ends the fire season, typically begins in November.

Background: a recurring regional crisis

Indonesia’s worst modern fire year was 2015, when fires burned about 2.6 million hectares, according to the World Bank, which estimated the cost to Indonesia’s economy at $16 billion. Haze from those fires closed schools in Singapore and Malaysia. Much of the burning takes place on drained peatland, which smolders underground for weeks and releases large amounts of smoke and carbon.

Fires are often set to clear land for oil palm and pulpwood plantations, though companies deny responsibility and blame smallholders. Indonesia has prosecuted some firms and revoked permits after past fire seasons, and Singapore has used its haze law to issue notices to companies, according to Singapore’s environment ministry.

The financial angle in this week’s agreement is new. By tracking money linked to burning, the two governments are targeting the investors and buyers behind plantations, not only the people who light fires. How the task force handles commercially sensitive data, and whether it names companies, will be closely watched.

Singapore and Indonesia have been working through several bilateral issues in recent years, including airspace management, defense cooperation and extradition, under agreements signed in 2022. The gas dispute and the haze talks show how environmental and energy questions now sit alongside those older files. For the politics inside Indonesia, see our report on the Jakarta protests, linked from our Southeast Asia hub.

Related coverage: Thousands rally in Jakarta over haze and living costs. ASEAN envoy leads aid mission into Myanmar. Find all of our regional reporting, plus country facts and official resources, on the Southeast Asia news hub.

Sources

• CNA: Singapore, Indonesia to set up haze task force and hotline
• The Business Times: Singapore, Indonesia reach political commitment on transboundary issues
• Cabinet Secretariat of Indonesia: news

Additional sources

• CNA: Vivian Balakrishnan holds high-level talks in Indonesia
• Singapore National Environment Agency: haze updates