Entrepreneurs Reveal The Three Largest Export Challenges In LPEI

LPEI held a World Dare Forum (Photo: LPEI)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Export Financing Agency (LPEI) or Indonesia Eximbank continues to encourage national exports by initiating the World Dare Forum as a forum for discussion and collaboration of export ecosystems consisting of ministries, banks, partners, SME players, associations and others in order to jointly build and increase the capacity of SMEs to dare to go global in a sustainable manner.

Meanwhile, in the discussion, export actors highlighted three export challenges for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), namely maintaining the quality and capacity of export products, logistical challenges, and strategies to find trusted buyers.

In the discussion, exporters discussed their efforts to increase the added value of the product and provide business benefits in penetrating the international market.

CEO of PT Tartaruga Food Indonesia Achmad Jawahir alumni of the LPEI Training Program for New Exporters (CPNE) in 2023 said, in his experience, the biggest challenge in exporting is requiring buyers to penetrate the international market.

"My experience has had the opportunity to export to Malaysia, it was initially facilitated by Indonesia Eximbank through Business Matching (program)," he explained in his statement, Thursday, June 6.

Meanwhile, Tartaruga was founded in 2020 and has succeeded in becoming a seaweed processing plant that has halal certification and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification. By processing high seaweed products with fiber, vitamins, minerals and low cholesterol, Tartaruga products have successfully penetrated exports to Malaysia, Australia, and Saudi Arabia.

In addition, the CEO of PT Hadir Senarumkan Nusantara Rizky Arief Dwi Prakoso, the owner of the HMNS perfume brand who is currently hypes in the domestic market, said that the challenge of his products in penetrating the world market is how to have competitive advantages compared to the global fashion brand.

Meanwhile, the Founder of CV IKAPEKSI Agro Industri Nurjannah said the challenge at the beginning of exporting, namely the lack of knowledge in exporting even though he had received a positive response from potential buyers.

"Alhamdulillah, we received PNE training from LPEI in 2019, we were guided for one year and the effect was extraordinary," he said.

Nurjanah also shared that in early 2022, CV IKAPEKSI Agro Industri participated in LPEI's Business Matching and managed to score exports to Saudi Arabia worth US$37,000 or the equivalent of 22 tons of soy sauce. Until now, Osii's soy sauce has been successfully exported to Saudi Arabia and Japan.

Nurjannah started Oishii's soy sauce business starting in 2017 in Kebumen, Central Java with the aim of producing healthy sweet soy sauce without additional ingredients such as flavor boosters, food coloring, and food preservatives.

"Oishii sauce uses ingredients and spices from Indonesia such as white soybeans, ginger, lemongrass, coconut sugar, and lengkuas," he explained.