Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The number of entrepreneurs in Indonesia is expected to increase by at least 500,000 within the next four years.

Future entrepreneurship programs would be designed to produce creative, innovative and globally competitive entrepreneurs, Dr Handito Joewono, head of the coordinating economic ministry`s national coordinating team of creative entrepreneurship promotion, said here Monday.

"Within the next four years, we hope there will additional new 500,000 entrepreneurs in Indonesia," he said.

He also hoped that by 2025 the number would multiply to five million entrepreneurs.

Currently, the number of Indonesian entrepreneurs is around 0.24 percent of the country`s total population.

Sociologist David Mc Cleiland said, that to develop a country`s advanced economy, the number of entrepreneurs should be at least two percent or 4.8 million entrepreneurs for the total Indonesian population.

As comparison, the number of entrepreneurs in Singapore is 7.2 percent of its total population, Malaysia 2.1 percent, Thailand 4.1 percent, South Korea 4.0 percent, and the United States 11.5 percent.

It would take up to the year 2030 for Indonesia to have 4.8 million entrepreneurs or 2 percent of its current total population, he said.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2011