Jakarta (ANTARA) – Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said controlling imports is highly needed to protect Indonesia’s domestic trade.To this end, the government plans to reactivate the rules of border import inspection and supervision, he said during a visit to Johar Market in Semarang City, Central Java, on Saturday. “We will shift the import supervision from post-border to border rules. Therefore, imports are supervised more strictly,” he said. The Indonesian Government has regulated trade in electronic systems as the implementation of Trade Minister’s Regulation Number 31 of 2023 on Business Licensing, Advertising, Guidance, and Supervision of Business Players in Trading Through Electronic Systems. “E-commerce is also regulated, not prohibited,” he said. He gave some examples of the regulations, such as food products that must have halal certificates, medicines, and cosmetic products that must have licenses from the National Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM), and electronic products that must have an after-sales guarantee. He further explained that the e-commerce is regulated so that it does not harm the businesses of offline stores. Hasan encouraged players of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to enter the digital ecosystem. ccording to him, the current competition is increasingly high, and MSME players must also improve their capacity to enable them to compete. To this end, the Ministry of Trade has created various training programs for MSMEs to support them in entering the digital ecosystem. Minister Hasanalso emphasized the government’s support for protecting business players in the country, especially MSME players. The support is shown through controlling and supervising imports as well as regulating e-commerce.

Source: Antara News Agency