It is because the majority, or 99.9 percent, of our entrepreneurs are MSMEs that have contributed to the national GDP at 61 percent and the most outstanding is its employment reached 97 percent.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Cooperatives and Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Minister Teten Masduki has said he is keen to see cooperatives and MSMEs become the drivers of national economic recovery.

“It is because the majority, or 99.9 percent, of our entrepreneurs are MSMEs that have contributed to the national GDP at 61 percent and the most outstanding is its employment reached 97 percent," Masduki remarked here on Monday.

MSMEs need to cooperate with big business, he said. Based on a survey, 93 percent of MSMEs in Indonesia are not cooperating with big businesses, he noted.

Partnering with big business can offer MSMEs the opportunity to expand their market, increase production capacity, and improve the quality of promotions, according to Masduki.

“Our MSMEs are always unable to compete, either online or offline, due to our low production capacity and competitiveness. We are keen on preparing our MSMEs in a supply chain concept in the near future,” he said.


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MSMEs in China, South Korea, and Japan have produced technology products to meet the supply chain needs of national industries, he pointed out.

“This is important in order that our MSMEs do not continue to make chips, crackers, sweets, but start to produce industrial components (for) food industry, automotive industry, electronics, and so on. Thus, when the business is developing, its MSMEs will go up. What we need to prevent is the (incidence of) small businesses getting captured by big businesses,” Masduki said.

The Cooperatives and Small Medium Enterprises Ministry and the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) earlier on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the implementation of duties and authorities' coordination in partnership supervisory.

KPPU chairman said that MSMEs have been shown to have a huge contribution to Indonesia’s economic growth, particularly in job generation, workforce absorption, GDP formation, as well as providing a safety net, especially for the middle and low income communities, to run productive economic activities.


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Translator: Baqir Idrus, Razi, Juwita Tris
Editor: Suharto
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