Indonesia is the main initiator and one of the strongest supporters and organizers to make the creative economic industry a global issueJakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia has played a pivotal role in putting the creative economic industry on the global agenda, according to the Foreign Ministry.
"Indonesia is the main initiator and one of the strongest supporters and organizers to make the creative economic industry a global issue,” Vice Foreign Minister Mahendra Siregar said during a webinar on the reflection and development of creative economic cooperation in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Indonesia’s efforts to promote the creative economy industry and include it in the global agenda are a significant achievement, he added.
In fact, the achievement was made when the COVID-19 pandemic engulfed the world, he noted.
The creative economy industry grew significantly in Indonesia when the COVID-19 pandemic battered other industries, he added.
"When many industrial business sectors slowed down due to the pandemic, the creative industry was not relatively too affected," he said.
Indonesia’s efforts to strengthen digital technology and communication to boost economic activities during the enforcement of public mobility restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19 have increasingly strengthened the growth of the creative economy, he noted.
"This is because we managed to take advantage of the pandemic, which is full of challenges, as a chance to synergize various industries, including using and benefitting from digital technology, which translated into a variety of new creations and products," he said.
In addition to the pandemic, the other momentum that encouraged Indonesia to promote the creative economy as a global agenda was its commitment to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), he said.
The steps taken by Indonesia to align the industry with the SDGs covered efforts to mainstream creative economic cooperation to achieve sustainable development at a global level, including the idea of adopting 2021 as the international creative economic year for sustainable development at the UN General Assembly and the World Conference on Creative Economy at the 2021 Dubai Expo.
He further highlighted a number of challenges that had to be addressed to develop the creative economy industry.
One of the challenges was when Indonesia tried to support and facilitate creative industrial cooperation to develop Balinese traditional clothes, endek clothes, with French design house Dior.
"In the end, we achieved a good result. But during the process we experienced various obstacles and challenges that we must no longer face at this time,” Siregar said.
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Translator: Katrina. Suharto
Editor: Sri Haryati
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