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Ministry targets entrepreneurship rate to hit 4% this year
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Entrepreneurs of a home industry make handicrafts from coconut shells in Banda Aceh, Aceh. Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Anak Agung Gede Ngurah Puspayoga aims to see the entrepreneurship rate in Indonesia rise to 4 percent by the end of this year. (Antara/Irwansyah Putra)
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ooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Anak Agung Gede Ngurah Puspayoga has set a target of a 4 percent national entrepreneurship rate by the end of this year.
The figure is an increase from 3.1 percent last year, which is itself a rise from 1.67 percent in 2015.
Puspayoga said Tuesday that he was upbeat about meeting the goal because efforts made in the past two years had led to a significant surge in the ratio of local entrepreneurs to the total population.
Furthermore, the latest figure exceeded the minimum ratio of 2 percent relative to the population that a country ideally achieved, he added.
“We want it [the ratio] to be at least equal with Malaysia, which has a figure of 5 percent. The figure should not as high as in Japan or the United States, where it stands above 10 percent,” Puspayoga said in a statement as quoted by kompas.com.
(Read also: Successful entrepreneurs must be tech-savvy: Jokowi)
The emergence of new entrepreneurs is considered essential to address unemployment, which rises as a workforce grows faster than job opportunities.
The achievement of the higher entrepreneurship rate target, Puspayoga said, would require solid cooperation from various stakeholders, namely the central and regional governments, state-owned enterprises, universities and students.
“Students and universities are a potential target to nurture entrepreneurship. We visit universities to help raise the ratio,” he said. (ecn/lnd)
