Minister Teten Regarding Tanah Abang Market Traders Asking To Close E-commerce: It's Just Their Expression Of Anger

Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki. (Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - Traders at Tanah Abang Market asked the government to immediately close e-commerce platforms, such as Lazada, Shopee, and Tokopedia. This is due to the lack of sales at Tanah Abang Market since the e-commerce service.

Responding to this, Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki said the government would not close its e-commerce because the transaction itself had been regulated. He considered that this was only a form of anger against traders because the products were empty of buyers.

"Yes, it (closed) is not true, it is an expression of their anger because MSME products are sold offline, one of which is at Tanah Abang Market cannot compete with the entry of online goods," Teten told reporters in Bandung, West Java, Wednesday, October 11.

Teten assessed that the reason for the lack of buyers at Tanah Abang Market was not because of the sales method, both online and offline. This is because they have also sold their products on all e-commerce channels, but still cannot compete.

"So, actually the problem is not online and offline, because they sell their products on all e-commerce channels, including they do live shopping. But, right, live shopping does not use figure influencers, so they still can't compete, there are no spectators," he said.

Until now, said Teten, as many as 22 million MSMEs have been selling online. However, not a few can survive because they lose to compete in the market.

Therefore, he continued, the government is currently reviewing three strategic steps related to this problem. First, regulating the governance of its digital platform. In this case, the government has separated between e-commerce and social media.

"So, with this step, it is hoped that there will be no monopoly either," he said.

Then, the second effort is for the government to regulate the flow of imported goods. The third step is tightening trade online.