BPS starts collecting data on e-commerce

E-COMMERCE - JAKARTA. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has started to collect data on e-commerce, the results of which will be used to help the government introduce a policy on the industry.

Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said for the initial step, the BPS would focus on the data collection of certain business sectors including transportation, specialty stores, the marketplace and travel.

“The data collected by the BPS will help the government to make a proper policy on e-commerce,” said Rudiantara in Jakarta on Monday as reported by tribunnews.com.

Meanwhile, BPS head Suhariyanto said data collection had started in early January in cooperation with the Indonesian E-Commerce Association (idEA).

He said the information to be collected included the businesses players, the turnovers of each firm, the products and also consumer behavior.

“We assume that the online businesses sell tertiary products. We want to look into it further,” Suhariyanto said, adding that the first data collection would be completed in late February.

Previously, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the ministry was now drafting a regulation on e-commerce taxation to provide tax incentives to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) so that they would be able to compete with imported goods.

“The tax incentive [for SMEs] is needed because many of them have entered e-commerce,” she added.