Cross border data flows for SMEs within ASEAN

Daniar Supriyadi and Bayu Rizky Arofianto
-

PREMIUM

Jakarta / Mon, September 14, 2020 / 10:36 am

Cross border data flows for SMEs within ASEAN

Southeast Asia internet economy (gross merchandise value, in billion US dollar). (e-Conomy SEA 2019/JP/Hengky Wijaya)

The lifeblood of the digital economy is data. Both personal and nonpersonal data are used for fulfilling business purposes, such as digital marketing, online purchase order fulfillment, employee management and data-driven innovations. In fact, many digital products and services (e.g. e-commerce, payment services, online learning) have gained greater momentum during this pandemic. In the long run, Indonesia’s digital economy is expected to be a champion, as The Jakarta Post has stated that in the next five years as of 2018, or even sooner, Indonesia will become a powerhouse in the digital economy in Asia, or at least the Southeast Asia’s next digital payments battleground (the Post editorial on Nov. 29, 2018, and Kelvin Phua’s opinion in the Post on July 13, 2020). The volume of data being transferred country by country keeps increasing. That figure is expected to ...