My article titled “Aceh After Special Autonomy Ends” ran in Serambi Indonesia. It grew out of a simple unease: Aceh is pouring a great deal of energy into defending the Special Autonomy Fund, yet has not been serious enough about discussing the economic sources that would replace it. We certainly need to fight for an extension. But that fight should run alongside the work of building an economic foundation that keeps Aceh from depending indefinitely on transfers from the central government.
That dependence is no small matter. In 2024 the Special Autonomy Fund made up 37.53 percent of the Aceh government's revenue, while locally generated revenue came to only about Rp3.23 trillion. In 2026 Aceh received roughly Rp4.08 trillion in Special Autonomy funds, while every revenue-sharing transfer combined, from oil and gas, minerals, forestry, fisheries, palm oil and taxes, amounted to only about Rp979 billion. Special Autonomy is therefore worth more than four times all of Aceh's revenue sharing. Its ending would not mean losing a single budget line, but a major change to the province's fiscal structure. How that structure is felt at the household dinner table I have discussed separately in A Recovery That Has Not Reached the Dinner Table.
Why Aceh's Special Autonomy funding is hard to replace
The problem is not that Aceh lacks resources. We have palm oil, coffee, patchouli, areca nut, nutmeg, pepper, fish and pine resin. The trouble is that most of these commodities leave Aceh before their economic value is fully formed. We produce the raw material, while processing, packaging, trading, financing, marketing and brand building all happen elsewhere. Aceh carries the work at the front of the production chain, while the most profitable part of that chain is enjoyed by other regions.
Palm oil shows this most plainly. Aceh produced about 1.15 million tonnes of crude palm oil in 2025. If all of it were exported, the state would collect roughly Rp5.5 trillion through export duties and levies, calculated using the prevailing tariffs and the Bank Indonesia exchange rate of Rp17,552 on 9 September 2026. Yet the palm oil revenue share returning to the Aceh government together with every district and city in 2026 was only Rp38.29 billion, less than one percent of what was collected, and sharply down from about Rp149.66 billion in 2024. Whether that crude palm oil is shipped through Krueng Geukueh or trucked to Belawan does not change the amount Aceh receives. Where Aceh’s palm oil ends up being recorded is something I examined further in Ironi Ekspor Satu Pintu.
The same pattern appears in other commodities. Fisheries do have a revenue-sharing scheme, but the split does not follow directly from how much fish a region catches, lands or processes. Gayo coffee, patchouli, areca nut, nutmeg and pepper have no revenue sharing at all. Coffee leaves as green beans, and the larger value appears only after it is roasted, packaged, branded and sold to consumers. Pine resin comes from Aceh, but the large gum rosin and turpentine plants have grown up outside the province. Industrial jobs, business margins, technical capability and regional revenue all end up forming somewhere else.
Aceh's self-reliance therefore cannot be built on appeals for exporters to use local ports, or on demands for a larger share. Commodity flows follow business logic: freight costs, contracts, financing, storage tanks, processing facilities, volume certainty, buyers and sailing schedules. Before the 2027 provincial budget is set, the Aceh government ought to calculate how much value added slips away each year, then weigh it against the investment needed to hold that value through processing, storage, cargo consolidation, financing, marketing and ports.
Extending Special Autonomy remains worth fighting for, but it only buys time. That extra time has to be used to change the economic structure, not simply to prolong dependence. Aceh will not become self-reliant merely by receiving transfers for longer. Aceh will begin to stand on its own when more of the value it produces stops leaving.
Sources and References
The full version of this piece ran in Serambi Indonesia on 12 September 2026 under the title Aceh After Special Autonomy Ends, and every fiscal and production figure here follows that text. Aceh’s 2025 crude palm oil production comes from the Directorate General of Estate Crops. The export levy figure is calculated using the prevailing tariffs and the Bank Indonesia exchange rate of Rp17,552 on 9 September 2026.
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