T

he newly established Creative Economy Agency needs to boost the protection of intellectual property rights, improve the quality of creative entrepreneurship and increase investment in the industry, according to the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin).

Budyarto Linggowiyono, Kadin vice chairman for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), cooperatives and the creative industry, said on Wednesday the structure of the agency would hopefully allow it to work more effectively than the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, which was established by the previous administration.

'€œThis agency is using a different approach from the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, which used a sectoral approach rather than a functional approach,'€ Budyarto told reporters after a discussion with the Creative Economy Agency at Kadin.

'€œAs a partner of the government, we are ready to support programs prepared by the Creative Economy Agency in a bid to increase the creative sector'€™s contribution to GDP [gross domestic product] from 7 percent to 14 percent,'€ he said.

Creative Economy Agency head Triawan Munaf, who was inaugurated two weeks ago, said he was still determining the agency'€™s priorities while waiting for the 2015 revised state budget.

'€œThe agency'€™s budget for this year is included in the Tourism Ministry'€™s budget. We are still waiting for the revision of the 2015 state budget before we can lay out the programs,'€ he said.

According to Triawan, there would be six deputies in the body who would oversee education, research and development; funding; infrastructure; marketing; intellectual property rights; and inter-sectoral affairs.

Triawan also said that his office would soon start mapping out all 16 sub-sectors and identify which sub-sector could be '€œthe champion [of the creative industry]'€.

Ahead of the ASEAN Economic Community set to become effective early next year, Triawan said the agency would focus its effort on pushing local creative businesses to produce high quality products that meet international standards in an attempt to boost competitiveness.

'€œWe will encourage local creative entrepreneurs to pay more attention to details and packaging to improve their competitiveness. Indonesia may have better products, but many of them are not yet meticulously produced,'€ Triawan said, citing culinary products and handicrafts as examples.

During the discussion, Haris Thajeb, from the Association of Indonesian Advertising Agencies (P3I), said the establishment of the body was important to protect the country'€™s advertising industry from the domination of foreign companies.

'€œAdvertising is one of the most strategic sectors in the creative industry and we hope that the agency can help voice our concern over the increasing number of foreign companies in the industry,'€ Haris said, adding that the government should revise the 2014 negative investment list, which allows foreign investors from ASEAN countries to own 51 percent of the shares in advertising companies in Indonesia.