Short video platform, TikTok has disclosed that the platform has no intentions to launch a cross-border business in Indonesia.
A government minister on Thursday voiced worries about how rumoured plans for the company’s new e-commerce push could saturate the nation with Chinese goods.
The video app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, has been developing a programme to assist Chinese retailers in selling goods internationally. It has been testing the programme in the UK and intends to formally launch it to users in the US next month.
Teten Masduki, Indonesia’s Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises, met with TikTok on Thursday, according to local media, and raised concerns that the company’s launch of such a programme in the nation could harm small enterprises. He said that the company had made a commitment to Indonesia.
“We made a conscious deliberate decision as a company to not open up cross-border business here. This is our commitment to support local Indonesian micro, small and medium-sized businesses,” Anggini Setiawan, Head of Communications, TikTok Indonesia, said in a statement to Reuters
“We have no intent to create our own e-commerce product or become a retailer/wholesaler in Indonesia to compete with Indonesian sellers.”
Given that TikTok is attempting to emulate the success that retail platforms like Shein and PDD Holdings’ Temu have enjoyed in Europe and the United States, the Indonesian government’s stance makes the Southeast Asian nation the first to explicitly oppose the yet-to-be-launched venture by TikTok.
Since its CEO Shou Zi Chew said last month that the company will invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia over the next years, TikTok has been aggressively recruiting the region for its e-commerce operation.
