Teten: E-Commerce Must Be Protected, Become A Social Conflict If All Economic Sectors Are Controlled By Investors

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki asked e-commerce businesses to be protected from practices that could harm the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector.

"Conglomeration and control of large businesses over the e-commerce business sector in Indonesia must be prevented and minimized to provide opportunities for MSME players to grow in the digital-based business," said Minister Teten in an official statement, Saturday, May 14, quoted from Antara.

Currently, the mastery of large businesses in the e-commerce business is still wide open. If that happens, he continued, then MSMEs in the digital business will definitely be unable to compete.

"Big businesses only need to provide applications and then sell their own products. There will be social conflicts if all economic sectors are controlled by big investors," said Teten.

Over the past two years, online business is said to have experienced a big leap due to the tradition and way of shopping of people starting to change from conventional to online shopping both in urban and rural areas.

This then prompted a sharp increase in business players entering the digital business with a total of 18.5 million MSMEs or an increase of 131 percent since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This figure is targeted to penetrate up to 30 million digital onboarding SMEs by 2024," he said.

The increase in MSMEs entering the online business is considered necessary so that the sector does not lose out before competing because it has to compete with big business actors in the free market.

One of the countries that is considered to have implemented protection for the MSME sector when entering the digital business is India. The Coordinating Minister views that India has created a conducive and fair business climate for the businesses of the country's people.

"We can learn one of them from India as one of the countries that has protected its digital business from unequal competition between big businesses and MSMEs," said Teten.