Remarks of President of the Republic of Indonesia During 2022 SOEs Startup Day, at ICE BSD City, Tangerang City, Banten Province, September 26, 2022

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullah wabarakatuh,
Good morning,
Peace and prosperity be upon us.

Honorable Minister of SOEs Erick Thohir, Cabinet Secretary, Deputy Minister of SOEs Tiko,
Honorable Governor of Banten and Regent of Tangerang,
SOE President Directors, CEOs, Startup Co-Founders,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our world today is in a difficult position.

All countries are facing difficulties. International institutions told us that 2022 is going to be very difficult. Next year, they say, is going to be darker.

When I met with President Putin for two-and-a-half-hour-discussion and met with President Zelenskyy for an hour-and-a-half-hour-discussion, I concluded that the war would not end soon. It would take a long time.  It results in other difficulties, food crisis, energy crisis, financial crisis, and the COVID-19 one which has not yet ended.

As a result, now I have just received the figure that 19,600 people die of hunger every day because of the food crisis.

However, it’s a global [number]. However, for you, I see that this is actually an opportunity. There is a feasible opportunity because our digital economy is growing rapidly and is the highest in Southeast Asia. It will jump eightfold from around Rp632 trillion in 2020 to Rp4,531 trillion later in 2030, meaning that the opportunity is huge. This is an opportunity for you especially the youth because internet users in Indonesia have reached 77 percent with around 8 hours 36 minutes of use daily. There is a huge potential.

Indonesian startups are among the sixth biggest in the world after the United States, India, the UK, Canada, and Australia. This is also a great potential which we must develop.

But do pay attention, from the categories that I saw, the biggest one is still in the fintech category, 23 percent. Then, the retail with 14 percent. Whereas earlier, if we look at the issue of the food crisis, matters related to food in the future will snowball into a big problem that must be solved by technology. It is a good chance. It is an opening. It is an opportunity. And for agriculture, it is only 4 percent. Do pay attention. There is a big opportunity there.

On matters related to food, we will talk about production, distribution, and market. There are opportunities in all matters related to distribution, production, and market.

On food, it’s not only about rice, but there are also other commodities, so many. Vegetables, there are various types of vegetables. Food is not only about rice. Do pay attention. There are sorghum, porang plant, cassava, sago, and so on. So, this is a big opportunity. The target consumers are farmers who work in the fields, fishers who work in the ocean, and housewives with their kitchens. The opportunity is enormous.

On health matters, the health crisis, we see a huge opportunity. Our country has 17,000 islands, 514 regencies/cities, 34 provinces, what can we do to improve our health? We can use telemedicine in a remote manner connected through platform, through app.

The third one, I have repeatedly said this on MSMEs. Do pay attention that we have 65.4 million MSMEs. Indeed, there are still many issues including on packaging, production quality, and production capacity. But there are only 19 million that have utilized digital platform so there is still a very large room for us to work on.

Be careful, [as many as] 80 to 90 percent of startups have failed when starting business because they don’t pay attention to market needs. They should start by knowing the market needs. Second, it’s due to lack of fund. This is the use of venture capital, the use of SOEs so that the large ecosystem that we want to build can be interconnected, so that everything is properly facilitated, and they don’t fail to enter the markets, to seize existing opportunities in the country.

This concludes my remarks on this auspicious opportunity.

By saying bismillahirrahmanirrahim, I open the 2020 SOEs Startup Day today. I thank you.

Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. (FI/EP)