[JAKARTA] Indonesia’s tech giant GoTo on Friday (Dec 8) confirmed that it was in talks with Chinese short-video platform TikTok for a potential e-commerce partnership in the country.

No final decision has been reached as yet, GoTo said in a disclosure statement on the Indonesian Stock Exchange, adding that discussions are “still continuing”.

The company also refuted earlier reports about TikTok’s parent company ByteDance acquiring a 50 per cent stake in GoTo. The statement said the discussions with TikTok did not include a takeover plan or any sale of more than 50 per cent of its shares to any party.

GoTo gave the assurance that it would follow local regulations and provide updates to the public within two business days of any agreement being finalised.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that TikTok had agreed to invest in Tokopedia, a unit of GoTo, and cooperate on an online shopping service.

Separately, TikTok has been in talks with five Indonesian e-commerce companies including GoTo, Bukalapak and Blibli about possible partnerships, Indonesia’s Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Teten Masduki was quoted as saying in a Reuters report last month.

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In October, the Indonesian government banned online shopping on social media platforms to protect the country’s smaller merchants.

This led to TikTok being forced to shut its popular e-commerce service TikTok Shop, scuppering its plans to compete with the likes of Tokopedia and Shopee Indonesia. TikTok has around 125 million users in South-east Asia’s largest economy.

With a population of more than 270 million, Indonesia recorded nearly US$52 billion in e-commerce transactions last year, according to data from consultancy firm Momentum Works.

The country’s e-commerce market is expected to grow to around US$160 billion by 2030 from US$62 billion this year, according to a report on South-east Asia’s Internet economy by Google, Temasek Holdings and Bain.