"Mentors must have the skills and knowledge that meet the qualifications with regard to cooperatives and MSMEs in order to contribute to the development of MSMEs, in which the skills were not gained in an instantaneous manner but (rather) through an elaborate development process," secretary of the Cooperatives and SMEs Ministry, Arif Rahman Hakim, stated during a Coordination Forum/Meeting for Capacity Building for MSME Cooperatives (PK2UMK) Fiscal Year 2022 hosted in Surabaya, East Java, as was quoted from an official statement received here on Thursday.
The event was hosted by involving the ministry and the regional government in a bid to enhance the skills of mentors, who came from 34 provinces all across Indonesia.
On the occasion, Hakim commended the 75 people selected as mentors, who showed utmost commitment to create cooperatives and MSMEs with competitiveness.
"It was expected that (they would grow) just like our tagline, 'Cooperatives Advancing, MSMEs Upgraded,' (so) we can pursue it together. One such way is assistance from mentors, plus the business players must have the spirit to grow," he affirmed.
The ministry is keen to pursue several targets in future, with the first being to initiate productive entrepreneurship moves that could increase the ratio of entrepreneurship to up to four percent by 2024 in order to improve public welfare.
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Hakim also highlighted the urgency of informing people of quality management to raise their awareness. Hence, he believes that the quality of MSMEs products would improve thereafter.
"In future, following directives from Mr Cooperatives and SMEs Minister Teten Masduki, should the ministerial budget be added, it can be used to build the packaging house for MSME products, so they can (improve). Let us pray, may the budget for the packaging house be granted in 2023 because currently, we are suggesting it," he stated.
The ministry also had six books that were used as guidance for the mentors. It contained knowledge and efforts to improve MSMEs to the point that they would be able to conduct exports and imports.
The ministry's second target was to encourage 30 million MSME players to integrate with information technology by 2024.
Head of the bureau of performance management, organization and human resources at the ministry, Bastian, said that the mentoring forum was conducted on August 3-6, 2022, in Surabaya, East Java, to assist in increasing cooperatives and MSME players in their respective regions.
In 2022, the program comprised post-training mentoring, legal aid services, and legal assistance related to training that were encouraged to be conducted gradually in terms of curriculum and division of authority between provinces and districts and cities.
In addition, the several indicators comprised encouraging the transformation of informal to formal businesses for MSMEs that included registration of business registration numbers (NIB), acceleration of digitization of cooperatives and MSMEs, increasing access to credit for formal financial institutions for cooperatives and MSME players, as well as training novice entrepreneurs through business plan coaching and other forms of business development.
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Translator: M Baqir I A, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Suharto
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