"Entrepreneurs are the backbone of the national economy," the ministry's Director General of Marine and Fisheries Product Competitiveness, Artati Widiarti, noted in the statement received here, Saturday.
The 200 prospective entrepreneurs accepted for the program were selected from 800 applicants nationwide, she revealed.
The director general said that an entrepreneur not only waits or seeks opportunities but also creates new opportunities from scratch.
"Becoming a resilient and successful entrepreneur is not easy because they are expected to be creative, innovative, and love to make breakthroughs," Widiarti remarked.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Index data in 2019, Indonesia was placed 75th out of 137 countries included in the index, she remarked while adding that among ASEAN countries, Indonesia was placed sixth after Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Thailand, and Vietnam.
"This index reflected the parameter of the entrepreneurship climate condition in a country. This is a challenge for Indonesia to improve entrepreneurship to compete at the global level," she noted.
Widiarti expressed hope that the event would serve as a medium for participants to initiate and operate new businesses.
Meanwhile, the directorate general's business and investment director, Catur Surwanto, informed that the 200 participants will partake in the training and technical assistance programme from August to September 2022.
They will receive education on production techniques and various soft skills that will help them in operating their business, he remarked.
Surwanto revealed that the program participants would receive training on the production of various fishery products, package design and branding, simple accounting, business licence management, and other relevant knowledge.
"We hope that after the training program, participants would become more confident to become an entrepreneur," the director remarked.
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Translator: M Razi Rahman, Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Sri Haryati
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