Source: Global Times
Author: Xu Liping
At the end of last month, the Indonesian Ministry of Trade issued the Minister of Trade No. 31 in 2023, prohibiting social media from being a platform for commodity sales.Affected by this, Tiktok's e -commerce business Tiktok Shop has closed the local business on October 4.TIKTOK has 125 million months of living users in Indonesia and regards Indonesia as one of the important markets.Earlier, TIKTOK has promised to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia (analysis mainly Indonesia) in the next few years, and vigorously establish its e -commerce platform.
At the same time, more than 6 million online merchants, more than 700 million live -streaming workers and short video creators were also affected by this ban. Its business ecological network faced "clear zero" almost overnight.Indonesia's "live broadcast" e -commerce model is abruptly stopped, which will have a wide impact on regions and the world.What signals did the Indonesian government pass to the international community?
First, try to regulate the Indonesian cross -border e -commerce market.
Regulations of the Minister of Trade No. 31 are the revision of Regulations of the 2020 Minister of Trade, which aims to regulate the behavior of registering, advertising, enterprise development and supervision in e -commerce trade.For example, enterprises defined through electronic systems, such as local markets or marketing and social business platforms, so that it is easier to make enterprise development and supervision.
Secondly, avoid vicious competition and winners.
Shopee, Tokopedia, Tiktok Shop, etc. are several e -commerce head companies in Indonesia.Among them, Tiktok Shop has a strong momentum in recent years, bringing greater competitive pressure to other e -commerce companies.On the other hand, the price of e -commerce products on social media is relatively low, and the Indonesian government is worried that this will disrupt the Indonesian domestic market.
Once again, protect data security and safeguard national interests.
Data security has always been a shortcoming of cross -border e -commerce. In this regard, there are certain gray spaces in various countries.2023-2024 is the political year of Indonesia. Candidates are staring at the 2024 election, and issues related to security often pay more attention and are easily hype.In this context, a number of ministers have publicly emphasized to maintain data security, and data problems of cross -border e -commerce are often easily enlarged.From this perspective, it is not surprising that it is not surprising that cross -border e -commerce registered in Indonesia.
Indonesia is vigorously promoting the digital transformation of small, medium and micro enterprises. It is not necessary to ban social media from engaging in e -commerce business.E -commerce business is standardized and governed.Although some countries have a tendency to follow the wind, such as the Malaysian government is reviewing a similar policy as the Indonesian government and considering the ban on e -commerce transactions on the social media platform Tiktok.
But taking this incident as an opportunity, in the future, related Chinese companies need to be more cautious when going overseas, and to carry out more communication and cooperation with local locations.Deep localization is a compulsory course for every company to go to the sea. Compliance operations are basic skills, and win -win and win -win are king.At the same time, the strategic dialogue with the relevant country's counterpart department is also necessary to avoid the security of economic and trade problems, minimize the interference and destruction of external factors on economic activities, and allow economic and trade activities to carry out the benign track.
(the author is a researcher at the Asia -Pacific and Global Strategy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the director of the Southeast Asian Research Center)
