As Many As 90 Percent Of Imported Products Dominate E-commerce Are Sold By Resellers

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki. (Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki said 90 percent of imported products that dominate e-commerce in Indonesia are sold by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) who do not have their own products, aka resellers.

According to Teten, MSME actors are forced to do this because their products are less competitive with foreign products in terms of prices. In addition to having a cheap price of origin, according to him, imported products also receive subsidies so that they become too cheap.

"After we evaluate the next three months, there needs to be an arrangement regarding the minimum price limit sold at e-commerce," said Teten in Jakarta, Thursday.

Of the 22 million MSMEs that have entered the digital market, most of them are reseller MSMEs that sell imported products, especially consumer goods.

"On average (MSMEs) culinary products have their own products, but if those in the consumer goods sector are outside the culinary sector, most of them are imported," said Teten.

Teten also assessed that Indonesia has a strong digital market.

So in addition to making many sellers of imported products, according to him, investors in the digital economy sector are also interested in trying in Indonesia.

Previously, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) reminded Indonesia not to be exposed to modern colonialism because of the dependence of cheap imported goods sold on e-commerce platforms.

President Jokowi revealed that many imported goods were sold very cheaply on e-commerce, for example clothes worth IDR 5,000.

The clothes are goods from selling losses or predatory pricing that need to be handled carefully.