"This business model is in line with the DMPA program initiated by Sinar Mas. Its principle is to create economic clusters from upstream to downstream that can result in products generated by village people that can improve the people's economy," Eko said after opening a recent seminar of the Association of Indonesian Bachelors of Economics (ISEI) that focused on "Strategic Partnerships for the Development of the People's Economy in Realizing Sustainable Development".

The ministry appreciates what APP Sinar Mas has done in contributing to and synergizing with the government's programs, which are designed to be in line with the third point of the Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration's Nawa Cita (nine-point development program) vision of Indonesia, which in this case refers to the point about how Indonesia must be built from the peripheries through the strengthening of regions and villages in the unitary state of Indonesia.

In addition, the minister added that the DMPA program has also helped provide guidance for villagers in the surrounding concession area.

"Sinar Mas has demonstrated its program and guaranteed a market," Eko said. "Making a program without a prepared market would be a waste."

ISEI chairman Muliaman D. Hadad said the DMPA program was one breakthrough in the spirit of collaborative development.

"The company works together with people around the concession, not only to increase economic value but also to empower the people and become a very good model. I think that the government has also seen this as a model that can be applied," Muliaman added.

APP Sinar Mas introduced the DMPA program in 2015 as a development of various public empowerment programs it had previously done.

"Originally, the DMPA was initiated to mitigate fires and encroachment of forests and lands around the company's concession area. But in its development, the DMPA's role became more holistic and not only mitigated, but also developed self-sufficiency for the villagers through eco-friendly forestry and eradicated tenure disputes in the region," Sinar Mas managing director G. Sulistiyanto said.

According to Sulistiyanto, through partnerships and support from different parties, this program has the potential to be further developed so as to become a vehicle for implementing a number of government programs.

"The Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry has the Featured Products in Rural Areas program, then there is the Social Forestry program in the Environment and Forestry Ministry, as well as the Agrarian Reform program in the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry. The DMPA program touches on a big portion of these things," Sulistiyanto said.

The DMPA program is an integrated movement that empowers people in and around the concession areas of APP Sinar Mas and helps these people develop their daily income. It does so mainly through the field of agroforestry.

The public is guided to make use of resources that are in line with local characteristics and potential, and to pay attention to surrounding conditions for sustainability.

APP Sinar Mas has prepared up to US$10 million in revolving funds to form 500 of these DMPA village programs around concession areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The DMPA program has taken off in five provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan: Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan.

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