Teten Duga Illegal Import Product Picu Sepinya Tanah Abang Market

Menkop UKM Teten Masduki at Tanah Abang Market (photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki suspects that the entry of illegal imported products into the country is one of the triggers for the lack of sales of traders at Tanah Abang Market.

This was revealed by Teten during an inspection at Tanah Abang Market, Jakarta, on Tuesday afternoon, September 19.

"Maybe what we need to regulate is whether the flow of goods entering, whether the consumer goods products entering Indonesia are illegal or we apply too low the import duty rate," he said.

"We are too loose for example, there are no restrictions on any products that may enter," added Teten.

Teten assessed that traders at Tanah Abang Market had started to carry out digital transformation by also switching to online sales. However, it still cannot boost sales.

"They have also tried selling online, but I conclude that the products sold by them cannot compete because there are imported products that are sold very cheaply," he said.

In the future, continued Teten, his party will be even more massive regarding the rules for going in and out of imported goods, so as not to hit domestic production.

"I will see if we need to regulate digital platforms, both domestically and externally, whether the goods there are accompanied by documents of their goods are legal or not, so that we prevent illegal goods through massive sales," he said.

On the same occasion, one of the female clothing traders, Anton said, many products are sold online at low prices. Thus, the selling products are unable to compete at this price.

"Online, the price is cheaper than in stores, the materials are the same. There are also materials that are the same, the quality is different. The influence is far for traders here. That's what we are confused about, why can the price fall. For example, we sell Rp. 100,000, online it can be Rp. 49 thousand or Rp. 39 thousand," he explained.

Anton also did not know that the reason behind selling products online was cheaper than offline.

"We ask for a solution (for this) to the minister," added.

Meanwhile, a robe clothing trader named Anggi complained about his declining sales turnover of up to 90 percent recently.

He considered that online sales such as on TikTok or other platforms had slowly killed traders at Tanah Abang Market.

"(Online sales) have a rapid effect on traders in Tanah Abang, yes. The problem is that we, right, trade is physical or come face to face. If TikTok doesn't need to go to Tanah Abang, go straight to shopping," he said.

"The traders complained that the turnover was reduced by 80-90 percent. Usually my sales are Rp. 40-50 million, now Rp. 1 million is difficult. So, the traders here (have difficulties). We have lowered prices, we still don't sell well," he concluded.