Indonesia

Indonesia will lower the import tariff threshold of e-commerce goods. According to Jakarta Post, Indonesian government officials said on Monday that the government will reduce the tax-free threshold of e-commerce consumer goods import tax from $75 to $3 (idr42000) to limit the purchase of cheap foreign products and protect small domestic enterprises. According to customs data, by 2019, the number of overseas packages purchased through e-commerce jumped to nearly 50 million, compared with 19.6 million last year and 6.1 million the year before, most of which came from China.

The new rules will come into force in January 2020. The tax rate of foreign textiles, clothes, bags，shoes worth more than $3 will vary from 32.5% to 50%, based on their value. For other products, the import tax will be reduced from 27.5% – 37.5% of the value of the goods collected to 17.5%, applicable to any goods with a value of $3. Goods worth less than $3 still need to pay value-added tax, etc., but the tax threshold will be lower, and those not needed before may need to pay now.

Ruangguru, Indonesia’s top educational technology start-up company, raised US $150 million in round C financing, led by GGV Capital and General Atlantic.  Ruangguru said it would use the new money to expand its product supply in Indonesia and Vietnam. Ashish Saboo, managing director of General Atlantic and head of business in Indonesia, will join Ruangguru’s board of directors.

General Atlantic and GGV Capital are not new to education. General Atlantic is an investor in Byju’s. Byju’s is the most valued educational technology company in the world. It provides an online self-learning platform similar to Ruangguru in the Indian market. GGV Capital is an investor in several educational technology start-ups in China, such as Task Force, Fluently Speaking listed companies, and Lambda school in the United States.

In 2014, Adamas Belva Syah Devara and Iman Usman founded Ruangguru, which provides education services in the form of online video subscription private tutoring and enterprise learning. It serves more than 15 million students and manages 300000 teachers. In 2014, Ruangguru received seed round financing from east ventures. In 2015, the company completed round A financing led by Ventura Capital, and two years later completed round B financing led by UOB venture management.

Thailand

Line Man, the on-demand service platform of line, has added meal delivery and online car Hailing service in Thailand. According to the Korean Times Report quoted by E27, Line Thailand, the most popular instant messaging application operator in Thailand, has added “Line Man” service, which includes meal delivery, convenience store goods and packages in addition to online car Hailing service. Jayden Kang, chief strategy officer and head of Line Man in Thailand, said that Line Man was launched in 2016 and has become one of the most indispensable mobile applications in Thailand. Kang said the company found that Thais want to use different services through an application. Due to the underdeveloped Internet infrastructure, Smart Phones began to be popular in Thailand around 2014, so Thais also need to download multiple applications and bind credit cards, which has many inconveniences.

Line Man initially focused on the Bangkok area, then expanded to Pattaya in October. In the next few years, the service will be extended to another 17 regions in Thailand. “In September, Line Man spun off line Thailand and set up an independent company with the goal of becoming Thailand’s unicorn,” Kang said New Line Man services include a grocery delivery service in partnership with local supermarkets, which will be launched in January next year. In the near future, Line Man also plans to provide home and air conditioning cleaning services, massage and Spa booking services and will explore shared kitchen services.

Vietnam

Vietnam bus booking platform Vexere was financed to accelerate product development. According to E27, Vietnam online bus booking system provider Vexere announced the completion of the fourth round of financing, investors including Woowa Brothers, NCORE Ventures, Access Ventures and other non-public investors. With the money, the company plans to accelerate market expansion and expand to other areas through product development and related industries. The company will continue to increase investment in developing mobile products for passengers, bus companies and drivers to better support the tourism and transportation industry. With the continuous growth of public transport demand and urbanization, the company also said it would continue to focus on the development of its mobile interface to improve the service quality of passengers.

Founded in July 2013 by CO founders Dao Viet thang, Tran Nguyen Le van and Luong Ngoc long, Vexere’s mission is to support the inter city bus industry in Vietnam. It provides three main solutions: Passenger online booking solution (website and APP), management software solution (BMS bus management system), agent ticketing distribution software (AMS agent management system). It is reported that Vexere has just completed integration with major e-commerce platforms and mobile payments, such as Momo, Zalopay and Vnpay. According to the company, there are more than 550 bus companies cooperating to sell tickets, covering more than 2600 domestic and foreign lines, and more than 5000 ticket agents to help users easily find bus information and purchase tickets on the Internet.