Local Government Award: Consumer Protection Attention in Indonesia

Consumer protection is increasingly becoming more relevant and important, especially within the current rapid growth of today's digital era.  Advances in information technology seem to eliminate communication boundaries between countries.  It also allowed and enabled seamless and intuitive cross-border transactions to occur all over the globe.

In addition, the advent of this technology would contribute to a significant change in consumer behavior, granting them more information to aid in their decision-making process when purchasing a product.  Though the digital economy has significantly improved the convenience and choice for consumers to make purchases, it also introduces new potential consumer protection issues. To that end, the Indonesian government continues to improve its consumer protection schemes, with special attention towards the digital economy.

The Indonesian Consumer Protection Law No. 8/1999 has been in effect for more than 22 years. Since its development, the implementation of the law still requires to be more optimized to achieve the goal of empowering consumers and responsible business actors.

Law Number 8 of 1999 concerning Consumer Protection, the Ministry of Trade of Indonesia has the task of coordinating the implementation of consumer protection. The development of universal consumer protection can be interpreted as the government's efforts to create a smarter and independent consumer, with the awareness to act both for themselves and the environment. Thus every consumer will be able to face an increasingly open market.

In addition, the Indonesian government seeks to create business actors that are responsible or able to carry out their rights and obligations professionally or implement appropriate business ethics, orderly quality, orderly measure and participate in preserving the environment.  With these criteria’s attained, goods and services circulating within the Indonesian market are of higher quality and competitive while also meeting health, security, and safety aspects as well as the environment.