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Industry Ministry aims to see 20,000 new SMEs set up by 2019
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A craftswoman makes a wooden miniature of a Harley Davidson in Brangkal village, Karanganom district, Klaten, Central Java. (JP/Ganug Nugroho Adi)
The Industry Ministry hopes to help establish 20,000 new small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector by 2019.
Gati Wibawaningsih, the ministry’s SME director general, said her office aimed to facilitate the formation of more than 5,000 new SMEs in 2017 alone.
“By now, we already have around 166,000 SMEs,” she told reporters Friday.
SMEs are key business entities that drive economic growth in Indonesia.
The government is encouraging the development of new SMEs as part of its efforts to boost the number of entrepreneurs in the country, which lags behind other Asian countries such as Singapore, China and Japan.
(Read also: Indonesia provides free domain names for SMEs)
To provide wider market access, the ministry will promote SME products through the creation of a digital platform equipped with an online marketing and e-payment system called E-Smart SMEs, Gati added.
She further said factories run by industrial SMEs had enormous room for improvement because at present, 92 percent of products at market places were imported, giving domestic businesses an opportunity to replace them.
Other forms of government support for industrial SMEs include the certification of products, assistance in purchasing machinery and equipment as part of industrial restructuring and promoting local and international exhibitions. (yon/lnd)
