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-commerce platform Blibli.com has outlined that it plans to focus on harnessing the potential of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), whether local or foreign, to increase its growth target by five times.

To keep up with the emerging e-commerce trend for 2016, Blibli CEO Kusumo Martanto said among other things that the online mall would focus on was the empowerment and ability of SMEs to sell their products through the platform.

He said that it would not matter much if foreign SMEs entered the platform, saying that the online mall was an outlet where SMEs in general could flourish in their own ways.

However, when considering such regional contexts such as the recently established ASEAN Economic Community, Kusumo said that Blibli would place an emphasis on Indonesian-made products to help local SMEs thrive and compete in the regional market.

'€œIf we expand outside of Indonesia, we want to bring and promote Indonesian products as well. SMEs in our definition are not determined by their size, but by what they produce. In this case, we would definitely focus on promoting Indonesian products first on a regional scale,'€ he said on Monday.

By focusing on SME development and attracting more in 2016, he sees the company having the potential to grow by five times by the end of the year. To achieve this, Blibli.com will step up its investment in technological services to help vendors with sales.

Other measures the company will take to achieve this growth target include plans to open new product warehouses in cities outside of Jakarta.

Kusumo described the warehouse openings as a way for the platform to interact closely with customers.

'€œWe will also try and aim for more local brands to join our service. But that doesn'€™t mean global brands would be ignored. We would focus slightly more on local producers,'€ he explained.

Commenting on the recently drafted e-commerce road map for Indonesia, Kusumo said that while he had not looked at the details, he believed that any rule within the road map was made because the government wanted to support the industry in terms of human resources, creativity and regulation.

'€œBut any regulation on e-commerce should in the end allow [local players] to move. Consumer protection is also an important aspect that requires attention if the government wants the industry to flourish,'€ he said.

The government recently declared that a formal e-commerce road map would be implemented at the end of January.

The 31 conditions in the road map include the government'€™s emphasis on Indonesian players to develop their businesses and the encouragement of all workers in the sector to have an understandable grasp of knowledge and skills for the new industry.

Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara previously noted that with a proper road map, Indonesia would able to earn up to US$130 billion from the industry by the year 2020 if implementation began in as soon as January.