JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia has asked Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:) and Google (NASDAQ:) to ban Chinese fast-fashion e-commerce company Temu in their app stores in the country so it cannot be downloaded, an Indonesian minister said on Friday. .
Communications Minister Budi Ari Setiadi told Reuters that the move aims to preemptively protect the country’s small and medium-sized businesses from cheap products offered by PDD Holdings subsidiary Temu, although authorities have not yet found any transactions by its residents on the platform. .
Temu’s rapid growth has drawn scrutiny of its low-cost business model of sending packages to customers from China by several countries.
Budi said Timo’s business model, which connects consumers directly to factories in China in order to dramatically reduce prices, is “unhealthy competition.”
The minister said: “We are not here to protect e-commerce, but we are protecting small and medium-sized companies. There are millions that we must protect.”
Jakarta would also block any investment by Timo in local e-commerce if it took such a step, Budi said, adding that he had not heard of any such plan.
Budi also said the government plans to seek a similar ban on Chinese shopping service Shein.
Temu, Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.
A company spokesman said Shin said they had no operations in Indonesia.
Indonesia forced Chinese social media platform ByteDance TikTok to shut down its e-commerce service in the country last year to protect local merchants and user data.
Months later, TikTok agreed to buy a majority stake in the e-commerce unit of Indonesian tech group GoTo in order to remain in Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce market.
On Tuesday, local Indonesian e-commerce company Bukalapak.com denied reports about the takeover plan by Temu.
Indonesia’s e-commerce industry is set to expand to about $160 billion by 2030 from $62 billion in 2023, according to a report by Google, Singaporean state investor Temasek Holdings and consulting firm Bain & Co.
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