Minister Teten Calls Indonesia's Digital Transformation Undirected Like China, This Is The Cause

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki at the Indonesia Digital MeetUp 2023 event at Smesco Indonesia, Jakarta. (Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI)

JAKARTA - Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki said digital transformation in Indonesia has not been fully directed.

The reason is, Teten assessed, digital transformation in the country is too advanced on the downstream side, but not upstream.

"After I learned, it turned out that the digital transformation of the economy (Indonesia) was not directed, too advanced downstream, it could be trade, financial services and so on, but weakly our digital transformation is in the industrial sector, production," said Teten at the Indonesia Digital MeetUp 2023 event at Smesco Indonesia, Jakarta, Thursday, October 5.

Teten said Indonesia was still unable to produce products that could compete globally in the market.

"Our digital transformation is weak in the industrial, production, manufacturing, agriculture, plantation, fisheries, and health sectors. We (are far behind China)," he said.

He considered, currently China is the only country that has succeeded in carrying out digital transformation in the world.

This is because the impact of the economic value is quite large on the country.

China is even said to have accelerated its economic impact over the United States (US) which began its transformation in the 1990s.

"In China, indeed, the digital economic share of their GDP can be 41.5 percent, it is the largest in the world," said Teten.

According to Teten, China's success factor is due to making a digital smart factory.

The country's industry can also make goods of good quality and can compete globally.

"Their products can be so cheap, the quality is good, and can compete on Global, but if we don't. So, we're just busy selling online," he concluded.