20 Million MSMEs Expected to Enter Marketplaces This Year

The Government has unveiled the target to onboard 20 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) into marketplaces this year.

“In 2022, we must achieve the minimum target of 20 million, and it will increase to 24 million in 2023 and 30 million in 2024. If everyone works hard and has the same spirit to achieve the target we have set, I believe that we can make it,” President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said in his remarks through video conference at the 2022 National Coordination Meeting for Digital Transformation and Complete Data Collection of Cooperatives and MSMEs, Monday (03/28).

The President said that during the pandemic, digitalization has become a solution for MSMEs players and Cooperatives to survive, grow, and develop amid tough situations and activity restrictions. As many as 17.5 million MSMEs players, he added, have entered the digital ecosystem.

“The number is not enough and we must continue to increase it. We must use the current momentum as well as possible to encourage the acceleration of digital transformation, [and ensure the MSMEs] to utilize digital technology, enter the marketplace, and become part of the national and global supply chains so that the MSMEs will advance,” he said.

The President also said that the Indonesian people should not only become spectators in the midst of massive digital trade activities, adding that domestic products, especially MSMEs products, must also supply the online market.

“We have to supply the marketplace. MSMEs and Cooperatives must provide massive supplies in marketplace with our domestic products, our MSMEs products,” the President said.

The President went on to say that several factors must be addressed from the upstream to the downstream sectors so that Indonesian MSMEs products become more competitive and are of better quality.

“We have to improve the packaging and the branding,” the President said.

On that occasion, the President also said that the number of modern, digital-based Cooperatives would continuously increase. The President is targeting 500 modern cooperatives by 2024, an increase from 250 cooperatives in 2022 and 400 cooperatives in 2023.

The President also said that the target of onboarding 1 million MSMEs into e-catalog of the National Public Procurement Agency (LKPP) must be completed this year.

“I have ordered Governors, Regents, Mayors, Ministers, and State-Owned Enterprises CEOs that the State Budget, Regional Budget, and State-Owned Enterprises Budget should all be focused on buying domestic products, especially those produced by our MSMEs,” he remarked.

For the record, the National Coordination Meeting was attended by 1,200 participants, of which 200 attended in person and the other 1,000 attended online. Among the participants were representatives of various stakeholders from Ministries/Agencies, central bank Bank Indonesia, the Financial Services Authority (OJK), regional governments, banking and non-bank financing institutions, State-Owned Enterprises, Universities, associations of business incubators, communities, and digital platform players. (TGH/UN) (RI/MUR)