"We have a target for 2024, (namely) 30 million MSMEs, or half of the total 64.2 million MSME players to be digitalized," Deputy for Entrepreneurship at the ministry Siti Azizah said at a webinar on "Encouraging Digital Technology Utilization for MSMEs' Financial Access Improvement" here on Thursday.
As of 2021, the number of digitalized MSMEs reached 17.28 million--surpassing the government's target of 13.5 million--due to the accelerated use of digital technologies by MSMEs on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We are aware that MSME players need to utilize digital technologies. From year to year, the potential of the digital economy continues to improve. We even project the potential of the digital economy to reach Rp5.4 thousand trillion," she informed.
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The government continued its program for providing education on digital and financial literacy to MSMEs in 2022, carried out an MSME clinic road map, and appointed a project management officer (PMO) to accelerate the digitalization of MSMEs. As a result, so far, 20.99 million MSMEs have been digitalized.
In 2023, several of the programs will be continued, including the implementation of the PMO to reach the target of digitalizing 24 million MSMEs.
"In 2024, it is expected that there would be special big data for participants or players in MSMEs that have been digitalized, of course, by ensuring that data security is maintained," the deputy said.
According to Azizah, the collection of data on MSMEs has started since 2021 with the help of a single data information system. Last year, data on as many as 9.2 million MSMEs was collected, she added.
"We hope that in 2024, we will have obtained the 'by name by address' data of MSME players and other data from MSME players that will be added with the digitalization data," she said.
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Translator: Sanya Dinda, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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