Teten Mau Indonesia Collaborates With Dutch Startups, Increase MSME Capacity

Menkop UKM Teten Masduki (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs (Kemenkop UKM) encourages startups in Indonesia to cooperate with startups in the Netherlands. Kemenkop UKM accommodates and becomes home to 500 startups out of a total of 2,560 startups in Indonesia.

"Cooperation with the Dutch PUM is implemented in the incubation sector. I hope to synergize with the Rabo Foundation, especially in increasing the capacity of MSMEs through a sustainable financing system," said Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (Menkop UKM) Teten Masduki after holding a meeting with the Rabo Foundation at the Utrecht, Netherlands, as quoted from his official statement, Friday, May 31.

On this occasion, Teten also appreciated the contribution and commitment of the Rabo Foundation in supporting the development of agricultural MSMEs in Indonesia, especially through increasing access to sustainable financing.

"Indonesia and the Netherlands should have a very close relationship. One of the similarities that exists in the two countries is the competitive advantage in the agricultural sector," he said.

He believes investment cooperation in the agricultural sector can provide benefits to both countries. For Indonesia, this will be a transfer of knowledge about the latest technology in the field of agri-tech.

According to him, assistance in the upstream-hilir sector which is then combined with easy access to financing institutions has proven to have a high level of success.

"I also gave an example, the Al Ittikaq Islamic Boarding School Cooperative in Bandung Regency, West Java, which succeeded in meeting the quality standards and quantity of holticulture products to enter one of the largest supermarket chains in Indonesia, namely Superindo," he said.

Furthermore, said Teten, Superindo's majority stake is owned by Albert Heijn, which is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands.

Therefore, Al Ittifaq's success in being able to meet international standards in terms of production, post-harvest to enter Superindo's retail network under the Albert Heijn network, is clear evidence that Indonesia's local products are able to meet the quality requested by the world market.

"This is a collective success, a slice between superior products, world standard methods, sustainable financing and technological equipment," he said.

Not to forget, Teten also congratulated the Rabo Foundation for successfully achieving a journey of up to 50 years. He also thanked the foundation for opening up space for discussion.

"Hopefully this can produce historic innovations for the cooperation relationship between Indonesia and the Netherlands, especially in the field of financing the agricultural sector in Indonesia," he added.