Indonesia commitment to become key player in digital economy is shown by more and more innovative initiative that has been made. The newest one is the initiative from Indonesia's stock Exchange (IDX) who plans to launch a dedicated technology section in 2019 in order to host initial public offerings (IPO) by digital startups.
As reported by Reuters, IDX was working with Indonesia's financial industry regulator Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) to amend IPO rules for the startups. The rules should be revised or could cope with the nature of startups. Because today rules for IPO require the company to be profitable within two years of listing.
IDX Director, Nyoman Yetna Setia said that the rule will make startups hesitated to make their IPO in Indonesia. Therefore new initiative need to be taken.
"With this new technology board (and change in regulation, startups, including Go-Jek, will be able to list at IDX because they will have up to 6 years after listing to become profitable," Nyoman said.
This initiative by IDX is welcomed by the Chairman of Indonesia's Creative Economy Agency (BEKRAF), Triawan Munaf who also hoped the platform would allow startups to access funds from local investors through the stock sales.
Go-Jek becoming the main models for this initiative because the company has becoming one of the first Indonesia's unicorn. Being a unicorn means the company has reached one billion dollar valuation. Regarding to the IPO, the one stop service company said in May it was considering the move in Indonesia but had not been decided.
From ride-hailing into a one-stop app company, Go-Jek already done a massive growth. Almost everything could be find in the app from payments to food delivery services.
The Government of Indonesia itself are hoping to become the emerging world center for digital economy. While still have compete with their neighbor such as Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippine and Thailand, Indonesian authorities are hoping to be able creating more tech startups with total values of $10 billion by 2020.
