JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia may on Tuesday issue a regulation on the use of social media to sell goods in the country, President Joko Widodo said, a move intended to quell threats to offline markets in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
Ministers have repeatedly said that e-commerce sellers using predatory pricing on social media platforms are threatening offline markets in Indonesia, with some officials specifically citing the video platform TikTok as an example.
“We just…decided on the use of social media for e-commerce. Tomorrow it will perhaps come out,” the president, who is commonly known as Jokowi, said in a streamed video address on Monday.
“What the people are expecting is that the advancement of technology can create new economic potential, not kill existing economies.”
Jokowi did not mention any specific companies or offer further details on the regulation.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia and Stanley Widianto; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)
