Hence, the ministry encourages the campaign props used by the 2024 election participants to be locally sourced from domestic enterprises, Director General of Small, Medium, and Various Industries, Reni Yanita, said.
"We encourage simple campaign tools, such as t-shirts, jerseys, banners, and posters, to be purchased from local SMIs," she stated on the sidelines of the Startup4Industry Investment Summit in Jakarta.
She noted that domestic SMIs are capable of producing high-tech products, such as medical equipment and sports equipment.
"If it is only a jersey, our domestic SMIs can produce it at competitive prices. Some time ago, the ministry held a sports equipment exhibition, including sports attire. All of the participants were local brands. This demonstrated our capability," she stated.
Yanita also assured SMIs to not have concerns about the order volume. She suggested they collaborate with their group members to carry out orders.
Moreover, she reminded SMIs to continue improving their product quality to prevent goods from being returned by customers.
Minister of Cooperatives and Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Teten Masduki, earlier stated that the campaign period did not have a significant impact on SMEs based on his visit to several production centers for campaign props in West Java that produced t-shirts, banners, billboards, and flags.
"They have not received massive orders. It was only a small batch," he stated.
Masduki drew attention to strong indications of the use of lower-priced, imported campaign props.
“I knew those products were sold online at a very cheap price. For example, they were sold for Rp8,000 (around US$0.5) in the online market. When I checked at the factory, the production costs alone was Rp13,000. The cheap one may come from China," he noted.
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Translator: Ade Irma J, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Anton Santoso
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