Teten Wants ICMI To Expand MSME Market Through Digitalization

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki wants the Indonesian Muslim Cendekiawan Association (ICMI) to jointly create new economic sources, one of which is through accelerating digital transformation for MSMEs.

Teten Masduki stated the need to accelerate digitalization for MSMEs to expand market access. Indonesia should not only be the target of the expansion of the market of other countries, so that it is flooded with cheap imported products that have the potential to damage Indonesia's MSME share.

"Currently, the economic structure is still dominated by small and micro businesses. This shows Indonesia's fat economic structure in the micro. The challenge is how to develop Indonesian MSMEs to be more productive and competitive," said Teten quoting Antara.

One example of a country he calls the most adaptive to digital technology is South Korea (South Korea). The country even has ambitions to defeat Japan in various fields.

"They are trying to continue to innovate because if they are not innovative, they are worried that their superior products such as Hyundai and Samsung will be less competitive with products from Japan. Even though their market is quite large, reaching 50 million people in the country, and if they want to enter the global market, they must be able to compete with the United States (US) and Japan through high technology control," he said.

For this reason, the MenKopUKM encourages innovation to also be carried out by MSMEs in Indonesia. Do not let big businesses kill small businesses, the formal sector kills the informal sector, and people's stalls lose to modern stalls. He emphasized that it is important to plan the future of Indonesia in the next 5-10 years so that it can become a developed country.

Regarding the role of ICMI, MenKopUKM invites ICMI together with the Government and other related parties to contribute to creating a new economy. Including finding cheap and easy alternative financing because financing has been an obstacle for MSMEs, especially related to assets as collateral.

He emphasized that digital transformation is a must. The government has also targeted 30 million MSMEs on digital onboarding, which currently has reached 22 million MSMEs selling online.

"I hope that from MSMEs, we develop it with ecosystem support. With this, we can immediately change our economic structure, so that we become developed countries by 2045 by encouraging MSMEs to enter the strategic sector," he said.

Similarly, the General Chairperson of the ICMI Association, Arif Satria, who said that in the future economic and industrial competitions will lead to creativity and imagination. For this reason, he invites business actors to focus on future practices to become leaders (leaders), because if they are only based on past practices, they tend to be followers (followers).

"We are in a situation that requires the ability to make breakthroughs and creativity, the future is a competition of imagination and creativity. Small people don't think forever will be small, we currently have a great opportunity to be anyone in the future, the important thing is to have a creative mindset and future practice," said Arif.

The ICMI has accompanied 382 MSMEs. ICMI is determined to be a pioneer in building a future business ecosystem.