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espite the rapid growth of minimarkets, the city administration has yet to declare a permit moratorium or even conduct a study to find out how many minimarkets and convenience stores are in Jakarta.

The Economic Bureau'€™s head of the cooperatives, micro, small and medium enterprises and industry, energy and trade unit, Didik Junaedi, said the administration did not have any plans for a moratorium for minimarket and convenience store permits.

'€œThere are no plans for a moratorium that I know of. These minimarkets and convenience stores are dominating many cities in Indonesia, including Jakarta. The Bandung city administration in West Java and the Bali provincial administration have already issued moratoriums for minimarkets,'€ Didik said over the weekend.

The moratorium was implemented in Bandung last year. Bali implemented the policy in 2011. Jakarta enforced the moratorium in 2006 but canceled it in 2012. Since then, the number of minimarkets and convenience stores has continued to mushroom.

Didik said the city has not yet conducted studies on Jakarta'€™s minimarkets and convenience stores, which he believed would be needed to make a strong argument for the policy.

'€œIf the city seeks to limit the number of minimarkets and convenience stores in Jakarta, we must first conduct a study on exactly how many stores our residents actually need. For example, we should at least know how many stores are needed in each district,'€ the newly inaugurated official said.

Some business associations have expressed concerns over the rapid growth of minimarkets and convenient stores in the capital city.

The deputy chairman of Jakarta'€™s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Akhmad Syarbini, recently said that minimarkets were important for the city, but that they killed the business of traditional shops and markets.

Currently, there are 2,148 minimarkets and convenient stores in Jakarta, including local chains such as Indomaret and Alfamart as well as foreign chains such as 7-Eleven, Circle K and Lawson.

Separately, Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat claimed that of the 2,148 minimarkets and convenience stores in Jakarta, there were roughly 1,000 that violated their permits. He claimed to have gotten this information from district and subdistrict heads in Jakarta.

'€œMost of these minimarkets have problems regarding permits. Some of them have violated their permits while others operate without permit,'€ Djarot said as quoted by tempo.co. He said the administration would investigate violations and related bylaws to determine the next step.

Even before his inauguration in December, Djarot has repeatedly underlined his intention to limit the number of minimarkets and convenience stores, which thought to be harmful to traditional markets and small and medium sized businesses. He had also vowed to revitalize many of the city'€™s ailing traditional markets.

Meanwhile, Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama called on convenience stores that do not have permits from the Tourism Agency to apply for one. He said the administration would issue warning letters for the convenience stores regarding to the permits.

The Tourism Agency previously reported that only 91 out of around 200 7-Eleven convenience stores operated with permits from the Tourism Agency. Most of the stores have been in operation for more than a year.