Indonesia Yet to Decide Restriction of eCommerce Foreign Investors

Ilustrasi (dok)

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - Discussion on Negative Investment List (DNI) for eCommerce sector turned out to be a hefty lot.

"We discuss further with the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kemkominfo) in view of the issues that have not completed in the previous coordination meeting," said the Head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) Franky Sibarani, yesterday.

Franky said the things that need to be discussed is the allowed amount of foreign ownership for eCommerce sector, authority limit of the Ministry of Trade and Kemkominfo, as well as the new proposals related to the business field of the digital economy.

These three Portals are very familiar among eCommerce Users in the previous coordination meeting, there was a proposal to open the foreign eCommerce ownership up to 49%.

However, there are also proposals of foreign ownership is limited to 33% with a minimum total investment of US $ 15 million. As for the authority division between the relevant ministries, there is a discourse that Kemkominfo will have authority for infrastructure related, while the Ministry of Trade is to set up the trade.

"It still needs to be finalized before it can be implemented again," Franky said.  

Franky also added that in the previous coordination meeting, a discourse came up to add new areas of business in the digital economy that is the market place segment. This business field is to accommodate the emergence of new business forms that evolve as the business actor’s creativity and the technology development.

For example the businesses such as Go-Jek and Uber would not be classified as transport players because they do not directly own their fleet. As well as businesses such as Lazada and Tokopedia that are not categorized as trade because it has no inventory of goods directly.

"The investment guidelines generated is expected to be an umbrella for similar new business ideas thus providing legal certainty for businesses. It would be done in coordination with the Central Statistical Body related to new areas of business to be recorded in the Indonesian business sector classification standard (ISIC)," Franky said.

BKPM is currently completing the discussion of Investment Guide in lieu of Presidential Decree No. 39 of 2014. The discussion process has entered the coordination with the technical ministries stage. (es)