The majority of MSMEs in Indonesia are owned by women, with their percentage reaching 64.5 percent, he noted during the ‘Digital Cooperative Transformation’ event, held by the Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) as part of G20 here on Monday.
DEWG is one of the working groups of the G20 that focuses on issues related to the digital economy and highlights the role of digital transformation on economic and social growth.
MSMEs in Indonesia need to be empowered so that they can support economic distribution, Masduki said.
The economic potential of women-managed MSMEs should continue to be explored such as by consolidating women's MSMEs within cooperatives, he added.
"This can be done so that they can access a variety of facilities and benefits owned by cooperatives," he explained.
In addition, encouragement to MSMEs and cooperatives to carry out digitalization is also vital to realize food independence, he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry's cooperatives deputy, Ahmad Zabadi, noted that women-owned cooperatives have major potential when it comes to women’s empowerment.
In the future, these cooperatives can be a platform for providing education and training to improve women's quality of life.
"Cooperatives can create an opportunity for women to help themselves and they are not hindered by a patriarchal ideology that prioritizes men because, in cooperatives, all members have the same rights and obligations," he noted.
Currently, the government is continuing to bolster cooperatives' and MSMEs' digital transformation policies and programs.
This is being undertaken by setting a target of encouraging 30 million MSMEs to implement digitalization, establishing 500 modern cooperatives, and boosting MSMEs' export contribution to 17.6 percent by 2024.
"All of this became an effort so that Indonesia’s digital economy can be fully utilized for the prosperity of as many people as possible," Zabadi remarked.
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Translator: Bagus Ahmad R, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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