Gov’t to create new regulations to legalize Uber and GrabCar instead of blocking them

The legal battle over app based ride-hailing services like Uber and GrabCar has been going on in Indonesia for well over a year, with the government repeatedly warning the services that they would be shut down for violating existing transportation laws and consumers shouting back that the services provide much needed transportation options in a country seriously lacking in them.

The situation reached a boiling point on Monday when thousands of taxi drivers came to Jakarta’s National Monument to protest the ride-hailing apps and the Ministry of Transportation asked the Ministry of Information Technology to block the applications altogether (a request President Joko Widodo did not agree with).

Fortunately, instead of allowing the situation to boil over into a blanket ban on all ride-hailing services, it looks like the government has cooled off and decided to try and legalize Uber and Grab by creating new regulations.

Yesterday, Minister of Information Technology and Communications Rudiantara had meetings with representatives of Uber and Grab, as well as high-ranking officials including President Jokowi.

In a press conference following the meetings, Rudiantara said that while decisions had not yet been finalized, the government wanted to find solutions to the ride-hailing app problem that did not involve banning the services. 

“In the near future hopefully [we can find a solution]. I have to coordinate with the [Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry],” Rudiantara said as quoted by Detik.

The IT Minister went on to say that eventually the government wanted to create a coordinating body that would oversee and regulate the new industry to make sure companies were compliant and paid the proper taxes.

But Rudiantara emphasized that the government would not simply block the applications. 

“We’re not talking about blocking or unblocking. Technology is neutral. How do we create a win-win solution? It is expected that all of them can be regulated, so we are doing this in order to level the playing field between conventional and online,” he said.

We can hardly believe that government officials wants to take such a reasonable and progressive approach to this controversial problem. Perhaps the news that China is also planning to create new regulations to legalize Uber and its competitors convinced the government that this is the way of the future and they shouldn’t try to fight it? At any rate, we’re very happy we won’t be needing to delete our Uber or Grab apps anytime soon. 



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