JAKARTA: China’s TikTok has agreed to spend $840 million to buy most of Indonesian tech conglomerate GoTo’s e-commerce unit — a move that appears to allow it to restart its online shopping business in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
It also said it will invest further in the business, Tokopedia, which is Indonesia’s biggest e-commerce platform, for a total outlay of $1.5 billion.
TikTok had been forced to close its relatively new e-commerce service, TikTok Shop, in Indonesia after the country banned online shopping on social media platforms in September, citing the need to protect smaller merchants and users’ data.
The new partnership will commence with a pilot period carried out in close consultation with and supervision by relevant regulators, the companies said in a joint statement.
“We are creating an Indonesian e-commerce champion, combining Tokopedia’s strong local presence with TikTok’s mass market reach and technological prowess,” GoTo CEO Patrick Walujo said in a statement.
“GoTo now sits on a much stronger foundation and we expect this partnership to bring many benefits not just for e-commerce, but for our on-demand services and fintech businesses as well,” he said.
GoTo’s businesses include ride-hailing, delivery and financial services.
Under the deal, TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, will buy 75.01 percent of Tokopedia and inject TikTok Shop’s Indonesia business into the enlarged Tokopedia entity.
Officials at Indonesia’s trade ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Many of Indonesia’s more than 270 million people are active social media users and TikTok has been looking to translate its 125 million user base there into a significant source of e-commerce revenue.
TikTok Shop is currently available in only a few countries including the United States, Britain and Singapore, according to its website.
The deal will be concluded by the first quarter of 2024 and Tokopedia will receive a $1 billion promissory note from TikTok that can be used to fund working capital needs, the companies said.
Tokopedia competes with Shopee owned by Singapore-headquartered Sea and Lazada owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
It saw half-year gross revenue climb 14 percent to 4.5 trillion rupiah ($288 million) in August while its underlying loss narrowed sharply to 752 billion rupiah from 3.7 trillion rupiah a year ago.
Shares in GoTo, however, tumbled 13 percent on Monday — their biggest percentage decline in six months — as some investors took profits after the stock had rallied on expectations of a deal with TikTok.
Indonesia’s e-commerce industry is set to expand to be worth about $160 billion by 2030 from $62 billion this year, according to a report by Google, Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings and consultancy Bain & Co.

LONDON: A graphic novel looking into Gaza that was published in 2003 has rushed back into print after the conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas in October.

The comic, written by Maltese-American journalist Joe Sacco, pioneered what was dubbed “comic journalism” and tells the tales of his own work on the ground in the enclave in 1991.

It even drew praise from renowned Palestinian-American academic Edward Said, who said: “With the exception of one or two novelists and poets, no one has ever rendered this terrible state of affairs better than Joe Sacco.”

Since the outbreak of the conflict, the comic’s publisher said that demand for the novel soared.

Fantagraphics co-founder Gary Groth said: “We blew out of our inventory of several thousand copies quickly and are reprinting now. Retailers and wholesalers began ordering the book in far greater quantities than in the recent past, which indicates that every element down the chain — consumers and retailers — are expressing demand for it.”

Sacco, a cartoonist from Portland, told the UK’s Observer: “Things had seemed very bad when I was visiting in the early 1990s, at the end of the first intifada, but things were very much worse 10 years later.

“That the book itself still has relevance is a sorry testament to the enduring tragedy of the Palestinians — though, in some ways, it’s also a tribute to their fortitude, their unwillingness to give in.

“I would go back, if I could get in. Thankfully, many brave Palestinian journalists are doing exemplary work despite the appalling conditions and the very real danger to themselves and their families. But the main reason I would like to go back to Gaza is to see my friends there. I hope they will make it through this.”