Sandiaga Uno: The COVID-19 Pandemic Creates Reliable Creative Content To Grow Businesses, Including Women

JAKARTA - Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Uno said the COVID-19 pandemic brought wisdom. One of them is creating creative content that can improve business performance.

Furthermore, Sandiaga said, his party will provide assistance and facilitation so that these micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) can not only survive but also seize opportunities to become winners.

Sandiaga said that there are three strategies that have been prepared, namely fast movement (Gercep), joint movement (Geber) and working on all potentials (Gas Pol) with innovation, adaptation and collaboration.

"This COVID-19 not only forces us to sell online but also creates creative content to give our business progress. Marketing techniques, attractive photography increase the added value of goods and qualified packaging," he said in a virtual dialogue, Thursday, August 12.

The programs that will be given to creative industry players include culinary packaging surgery and culinary home surgery. In the future, activities like this will also be carried out in the fashion and craft sub-sectors or handicrafts in a sustainable manner.

Meanwhile, in terms of financing, Sandiaga ensured that the government would provide assistance. Because, MSMEs in the creative economy sector are one of the business units that have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I hope that the creative economy will become the backbone of Indonesia's economic revival and Indonesian MSMEs will become the locomotive with our synergy with the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs (Kemenkop UKM) and the private sector, we believe that it will create the widest possible employment opportunities," he said.

Sandiaga said that women are currently the backbone of the revival of the national creative economy. She said this was reflected in the number of creative workers who came from women in the culinary, fashion and craft or handicraft sub-sectors.

Based on Sandiaga's records, as many as 56.04 percent of creative industry workers in Indonesia are women. This achievement is very good and will be of special concern to the government.

"If we see that women now dominate in terms of creative economy workers, there are 56.04 percent of great independent women in the three sub-sectors supporting gross domestic product (GDP), namely culinary, fashion and craft," he said.

The government, said Sandiaga, will continue to support this achievement by providing equal opportunities to women in work. Not only in the private sector, the central government will also implement the same policy.

For example, said Sandiaga, in the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, as many as 50 percent of the top brass are women warriors.

In fact, Sandiaga said that after the COVID-19 pandemic, women became the initiators or breakers of ideas and ideas for people's ways of thinking about a new order in the creative economy sector.

"It is women who continue to be the backbone of the rise of the creative economy and we strongly support inclusiveness for women to continue to work and be productive," he explained.

Sandi added, the rise of the national creative economy was marked by the entry of Indonesia in the third rank as the country with the largest creative economy contribution to GDP. It was noted that at least Rp1,100 trillion was donated to the state from this industry.

The second rank above Indonesia is occupied by South Korea with music with the pop genre, namely Korean Pop or K-Pop. While the first rank is held by the United States (US) with its film industry which is famous throughout the world, namely Hollywood.