Indonesia bans ecommerce transactions on social media

Indonesia has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, the trade minister said on Wednesday, citing a new regulation.

The government says the move is aimed at protecting offline merchants and marketplaces in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, adding that predatory pricing on social media platforms is threatening small and medium-sized enterprises.

Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan told reporters the regulation, which takes effect immediately, is intended to ensure "fair and just" business competition.


Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga earlier this month said, "social media and social commerce cannot be combined," vowing to ban any overlap between the two. He named TikTok's "live" features as an example of people selling goods on social media.

A TikTok Indonesia spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. On Monday the spokesperson said the government should consider "the livelihood of more than six million" local sellers active on TikTok Shop.

The company said its app had 325 million Southeast Asian users that were active every month, and 125 million of them were in Indonesia.

TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance.