"We really welcome the use of QRIS," the ministry's deputy for digital economy, employment, and MSME coordination, Mohammad Rudy Salahuddin, said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
It is hoped that payments via QRIS would help MSMEs to easily sell their products to foreign tourists, especially those from Southeast Asia, he added.
Earlier, Indonesia signed cooperation agreements with four other ASEAN countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, on the use of QRIS, he noted.
Thus, tourists coming to Indonesia from the four countries will be able to buy Indonesian MSME products by simply scanning a merchant's QR code.
Salahuddin said that MSMEs account for 99 percent of the total economic business units in Indonesia, with their contribution to the national gross domestic product (GDP), both as traders and producers, reaching 60.5 percent in 2022.
In addition, the small and medium business sector absorbs 97 percent of the domestic workforce, he added.
"MSMEs are the government's priority to support," he said.
At a forum entitled "SRC for Indonesia: MSMEs for a Better Indonesia," which was held by PT SRC Indonesia Sembilan, he lauded the company's efforts to collaborate with the Indonesian government to digitize MSME payments, especially for grocery stores.
"The government and the private sector must establish a collaboration to support each other," he stressed.
According to Salahuddin, the number of grocery stores, both digitalized and conventional, reached 3.98 million in 2022.
Meanwhile, so far, 243 thousand grocery stores have joined SRC across Indonesia.
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Translator: Uyu Septiyati L, Resinta S
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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