Through Business Meetings, Kemenkop UKM Expands Access To MSME Financing

UMKM illustration (Photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs is working with the Indonesian Technology Innovation Foundation (Innotek) to bridge and encourage the expansion of access to financing and investment for SMEs in Indonesia.

This is by holding a business matching event entitled Intimate Business Matching Program Small Medium Enterprise Expo For Crowdfunding Investment Financing in Surabaya.

"The program, which has been running since July 2023, aims to bring together SMEs that have been incubated with potential investors, funding institutions, buyers, and partners," said Assistant Deputy for Financing and Investment at the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, Temmy Satya Permana, quoting Antara.

According to Temmy, business matching activities are useful for bridging SMEs with business partners through partnership patterns that are equal and mutually beneficial. SMEs can get strategic markets for business expansion, while partners can find potential MSME products to meet their business supply needs.

While participating in the EPIC SME program, the participants were equipped with various training materials aimed at overseeing their readiness to enter the investment world.

"Starting from the socialization of various types of financing, business surgery to increase the CEO/business owner's understanding of investment needs, training to make pitcheck standard, to matching assistance," said Temmy.

Temmy hopes that these activities can be a forum to open market opportunities and finance and provide opportunities for Indonesian start-ups/MSMEs to maximize their business sustainability.

In line with this, the Executive Director of the Ivi Anggraeni Inotek Foundation conveyed that from his experience of fostering and accompanying SMEs so far, many SMEs in Indonesia need financing.

However, unfortunately, they do not even know the various types of financing in Indonesia so they are not able to target potential partners whose business appetite is appropriate and in accordance with the services/products they make.

"Through the EPIC Program that we run, we help MSMEs to dissect their businesses and evaluate suitable financing needs," said Ivi.

One of them, he continued, is through providing Investment Readiness Report (IRR) to as many as 20 start-ups/MSMEs that can be used by themselves or potential partners.

Ivi hopes that MSME actors who take part in this program can apply the knowledge they have learned and passed it on to other MSME actors. So that later participants can jointly contribute to the progress of the Indonesian economy.

Meanwhile, Intimate Business Matching was attended by 42 SMEs from the creative industry, FnB, and technology applications with investment needs of IDR 21.7 billion. Meanwhile, the financing institutions participating in this event came from banking, venture capital, private investors, angel investors, crowdfunding, and potential buyers.