President Jokowi Encourages Investments on Indonesia’s Digital Economy

President Jokowi accompanied by Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, Minister of Investment/Head of Investment Coordinating Board Bahlil Lahadalia, and Head of Indonesian Chamber of Commerce Arsjad Rasjid during the opening of B20 Inception Meeting, on Thursday (01/27). (Source: Screenshot)

The Government of Indonesia has paid special attention to digital technology development which is especially contributing to the empowerment of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), and the development of human resources.

To that end, during the opening of B20 Inception Meeting, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo invites the people to invest in this digital economy sector.

“With a very large number of population and rapidly increasing purchasing power, Indonesia is very attractive for investment in digital economy infrastructure. We would like to invite investment that gives opportunities to all the people to participate and gain benefits from this digital economy transformation,” President Jokowi said at Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java, on Thursday (01/27).

The Head of State went on to say that the digital economy in Indonesia is growing extremely fast. Currently, Indonesia has one decacorn and eight unicorns. The Indonesian Government also continues to drive the MSMEs owners to use digital platforms in order to improve their businesses, he added.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Government has been pushing the MSMEs to use digital platforms in marketing their products. Today, this strategy has successfully brought in more than 8.4 million MSMEs to use digital platform to sell their products,” he said.

On the other hand, to improve the increasing global interconnectivity, currently, there are three investments in establishing undersea telecommunication cable that will connect Indonesia directly to the west coast of the United States of America. This infrastructure will improve the capacity of bandwidth in Indonesia more than 100 percent.

Moreover, Indonesia will also play an important role in semiconductor ecosystem. This year, we are building chip design facilities and a polysilicon factory in Central Java with the capacity of 40 thousand tons.

“At the beginning, this product will be focused to supply the needs for solar cell. However, in the upcoming years, it will be focused for semiconductor.” the President said.

For the record, digital transformation is one of priority agendas of Indonesia’s G20 Presidency. Another priority agenda is to strengthen global health architecture that is more inclusive, upholding equality principle, and responsive to the crises.

“The Indonesian Government and G20 call on B20 community to collaborate, mobilize resources to funding innovations and equal production of vaccines, medicines, and medical devices. Indonesia encourages investment in health sector to fulfill domestic needs,” the President said.

Indonesia, the President said, encourages investment in health sector to fulfill domestic needs, adding in 2021, the spending made by the Central Government and regional governments in health sector reached 34.77 billion US dollar.

“We will prioritize to buy pharmaceutical products and medical devices produced domestically. The principle is if it can be produced domestically, then the Government will not import it. Therefore, we also invite investments in Indonesia’s health sector that will also strengthen global health sustainability system,” he said.

Concluding his remarks, the Head of State expressed his hope that B20 community will make concrete offers that can be parts of concrete results of the G20 Summit. He is of the opinion that global partnerships between public and private sector should be orchestrated in order to provide global solution.

“Indonesia as a country and as the one assuming G20 Presidency is committed and works hard to give contributions to the world in an inclusive and sustainable development,” he uttered.

Accompanying the President during the event were Minister of Investment/Head of Investment Coordinating Board Bahlil Lahadalia, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung, and Head of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce Arsjad Rasjid. (TGH/UN) (AW/MUR)