Yogyakarta Proposes Raperda To Strengthen Role Of Modern Stores To Develop SMEs

Yogyakarta City Parliament Building (Eka AR/Antara)

JAKARTA - The Regional People's Representative Council (DPRD) of Yogyakarta City has submitted a proposal to discuss a regional regulation draft (Raperda) aimed at increasing the role of big economic players, particularly supermarkets or modern shops, to support efforts to develop micro-small business actors in the city.

"So far, there has been a partnership regulation between network shops and micro and small business actors in the vicinity. However, the role of big business actors needs to be improved,” said Yogyakarta City DPRD Commission B Secretary Rifki Listianto in Yogyakarta, as reported by Antara, Wednesday, January 27.

Therefore, Rifki continued, the Yogyakarta City DPRD proposed a discussion on the regional regulation draft on the arrangement of supermarkets.

One of the issues that will be part of the discussion, is the procurement of large-scale staple goods warehouses, with the hope that small traders or grocery stores can shop for goods from these warehouses at competitive prices.

Procurement of warehouses, he continued, can be cooperated with network store business actors so that there is a price similarity for an item. "Thus, the prices of goods sold in grocery stores or at these SMEs are at least the same or even cheaper than modern stores," he said.

So far, he continued, the prices of goods in grocery stores are much higher than the prices of goods in modern or network shops, making the shops managed by small business actors unable to compete with modern shops.

Meanwhile, the provision of a place for SMEs to sell their products at network shops will be used as one of the conditions for applying for a convenience store business license (IUTS).

Previously, the Yogyakarta City DPRD planned to propose a draft regulation on limiting modern shops or chain stores. However, the plan was changed after the Job Creation Law was passed by the government.

"The initial concept of the draft regulation that we will propose is to limit and regulate the existence of modern shops, starting from the number, operating hours, location, partnerships, labor, to goods that are traded," he said.

However, Rifki said, the academic text for the regional regulation draft must be changed completely so that it does not conflict with higher regulations and does not violate the limits of a local government authority.

“The local government only has the authority for guidance and supervision. Hence, we also change the draft local regulation and focus on fostering efforts for the development of SMEs by strengthening the role of modern shops," he said.

If modern shops or supermarkets do not fulfill their role to support the strengthening of SMEs, they will be subject to sanctions. "In a regional regulation, it is very possible to regulate the imposition of sanctions," he said.

Previously, the Yogyakarta City Government had regulations for controlling the number of network shops through the Yogyakarta Mayor Regulation Number 79 of 2010.

However, this regulation was revoked and replaced with Yogyakarta Mayor Regulation Number 56 of 2018 concerning the arrangement of modern shops without regulating the maximum number of restrictions.

Currently, applications for permits for modern shops are made online through an online single submission (OSS) application for the issuance of national business registration numbers and simply continue with submitting IUTS to the local government.