The plan has been an on-going discussion with Indonesia’s Finance Ministry

E-commerce giant Amazon is said to be considering business expansion to Indonesia and is now exploring the possibility with the country’s Finance Ministry.

The expansion will be Amazon’s second one in Southeast Asia after Singapore. The company was built by the current richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos.

Before officially operating in Indonesia, the government through the country’s Finance Ministry would ensure the company takes care of the tax policy accordingly.

“I’m now in discussion with Amazon, who is planning to enter Indonesia. I will make sure they comply with our country’s regulation, especially their readiness to pay the taxes,” said Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati as reported by KataData.

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Tax matter is now the ultimate focus of the Finance Ministry. Through the country’s Directorate General of Taxation (Direktorat Jenderal Pajak), the ministry has been pursuing for tax fulfillment of global tech companies operating in the country, such as Google and Facebook.

Aiming for Indonesia since 2016

Amazon has been operating in Singapore offering the e-commerce’s regular delivery services of Amazon, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Prime Now. Rumours were circling around that Amazon has been eyeing Indonesia since 2016.

It was reported back then that Amazon prepared an initial capital of US$ 2 billion to expand to Southeast Asia, with US$600 million will go to Indonesia market for its first year of operation.

So far, Amazon made available its video streaming service Amazon Prime for Indonesia. Other service available for the country is international shopping with 25 world currency including Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) to enable Indonesian customers in doing transaction with debit and credit card using local currency.

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Indonesia has opened its door first to China’s e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group through their Lazada acquisition and investments in Tokopedia. Another Chinese player is Tencent Group, who entered the country by backing up JD.id and Shopee.

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The article Menkeu Sri Mulyani: Amazon Berencana Masuk Indonesia was written in Bahasa Indonesia by Yenny Yusra for DailySocial. English translation and editing by e27.

Image Credit: Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

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Source: E27