E-commerce (sites) are committed to supporting our domestic products to be well absorbed by the public through the digital platform.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Communications and Informatics Ministry has asked online marketplaces to feature more domestically made products, especially those produced by micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and ultra-micro enterprises (Umi).

"I ask the Indonesian Association of E-commerce (idEa) to encourage national e-commerce platforms to create internal policies that are in favor and affirmative to domestic products," Communications and Informatics Minister Johnny G. Plate said after attending the ministry’s Fourth Digital Economy Forum meeting here on Monday.

The forum discussed the role of e-commerce in overseeing government spending policies for local products.

The minister said that the quality of domestic products is not inferior compared to foreign ones. Still, local MSME products need to be improved to make their quality better.

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"However, we should not wait until their quality becomes superior. We should take action starting now to spend it (our Expenditure Budget) to buy domestic products, while improving their quality at the same time," he added.

Budget spending on local product purchases is expected to become a trend, which will not only be carried out by the government and the public sector, but also private actors.

"E-commerce (sites) are committed to supporting our domestic products to be well absorbed by the public through the digital platform," Plate said.

In addition to asking for support for local products, he also said that Indonesia has regulations for digital platforms, including e-commerce sites.

Hence, if a platform does not follow the applicable rules, various sanctions can be enforced, including termination of access that will block the application from being used in Indonesia.

Earlier, President Joko Widodo said his government is targeting to help 20 million MSMEs enter e-commerce by 2022. The figure is expected to increase to 24 million by 2023 and 30 million by 2024.

Furthermore, the government is also aiming to spend Rp400 trillion of the state budget on buying domestic products.

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Translator: Natisha Andarningtyas, Uyu Lim
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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