Indonesia: Regulation on e-commerce to promote domestic products

• Feb 21, 2019

The Trade Ministry is preparing a regulation on e-commerce that will promote domestic products, the ministry’s domestic trade Director General Tjahya Widayanti said.

“The draft of the e-commerce regulation is being finalized,” Tjahya said in Jakarta on Wednesday as reported by Antara.

Under the draft regulation, e-commerce marketplaces would be required to display local products on their platforms.

Tjahya said the number of domestic products offered on e-commerce platforms was limited, therefore the government had decided to require all e-commerceplatforms to offer local products in addition to imported products.

She, however, could not confirm if the draft regulation would incentivize e-commerce platforms to give priority to local products, saying that the debate on the matter was taking place.

Previously, the Finance Ministry’s Customs and Excise Directorate General recorded that imported products sold through e-commerce platforms stood at US$17.17 billion in 2018, 9.11 percent higher than the previous year.

Meanwhile, the trade deficit was recorded at US$8.57 billion in 2018. (bbn)

Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/02/21/regulation-on-e-commerce-to-promote-domestic-products.html