VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Traditional market must still operate amid coronavirus or Covid-19 outbreak. Trade minister Agus Suparmanto said, in operating, the market must prioritize hygiene of the market, trader, and buyers while still implementing physical distancing in optimizing the Large Scale Social Distancing in some regions to stop Covid-19 spread.

In written statement on Sunday May 3, Minister Agus Suparmanto said, that Trade Ministry will cooperate with Home Affairs Ministry, National Disaster Mitigation Agency, and Covid-19 Mitigation Task Force in regions related to monitoring people’s market. This aims to keep the markets clean when operating.

Agus Suparmanto affirmed, this step also aims to ensure basic important goods supplies are available with stable price. Therefore, he asked the regional Government Associations of City and Regency to allow traditional markets in provinces, regencies, cities, and villages open by still obeying safety protocol.

The Minister explained, traders in traditional market decreased averagely 29 percent. The decrease also happened at traders’ turnover averagely 39 percent resulting from lacking of buyers during Covid-19 outbreak in Indonesia.

Similarly, retail businesspeople had their turnover decreased by 90 percent. Besides that, there was 50 percent decrease in goods supply that resulted in decreasing ability in fulfilling many responsibilities such as paying tax, rent, electricity, gas, installment, and employee salary.

Measure to operate the people’s market was also agreed by Covid-19 Mitigation Acceleration Task Force Doni Monardo. According to Doni Monardo, Indonesia chose to implement Large Scale Social Distancing instead of lockdown, so some sectors can still operate. National Disaster Mitigation Agency will issue Circular Letter to the whole Covid-19 Mitigation Acceleration Task Force in Provinces and Regencies/Cities to operate traditional market in their region while still implementing health protocol at the markets.

Policy to still open the traditional market was also supported by House of Representative’s Commission 6. In virtual meeting with Trade Ministry, Home Affairs Ministry, National Disaster Mitigation Agency, and some related associations, Commission 6 conveyed their support to make  Indonesian traditional markets’ circulation and ecosystem can still run, so that underprivileged people’s economy can still be maintained by continuously prioritizing health protocol. Traditional market must still open and operate optimally, since the market is the distribution chain for farmers and fishermen who sell their products.