Menparekraf Sandiaga Uno's Steps To Restore The National Economy

Sandiaga Uno/Special

JAKARTA - The government continues to encourage the recovery of the national economy from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tourism sector is the sector most affected by the pandemic.

To support the movement of this sector again, Menparekraf Sandiaga Uno invites business actors to maximize government incentive assistance (BIP) 2021.

The registration for the 2021 government incentive assistance program (BIP), which was re-launched by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, has been opened from Friday, June 4 to July 4.

"Today we are socializing the BIP, which we believe is a policy that favors creative economy and tourism business actors, especially MSMEs that really need the government's touch," he said, quoted on Saturday, June 5.

Sandiaga explained that the distribution of BIP is also expected to help creative economy and tourism business actors survive the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also provide opportunities for them to become winners by increasing their business scale.

"Especially the digitalization aspect so that they not only sell their products or services online, but also create creative content to improve and transform their business," he said.

Furthermore, Sandiaga asked for the active involvement of the community and the media to jointly oversee this program so that it can be right on target, on the right benefits, and on time.

"We underline that we will carry out all of these programs with good governance. We hope that this program can open the widest possible employment opportunities, maintain the tourism and creative economy sectors and be able to move the economy," he said.

BIP is an annual program since 2017 which was previously run by the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) and has been distributed to tourism and creative economy business actors throughout Indonesia to provide additional working capital and/or investment in fixed assets to increase business capacity.

In 2020, the budgeted distribution of BIP is Rp. 24 billion and this year it has been increased three times to Rp. 60 billion.

The target of government incentive assistance is limited

Deputy for Industry and Investment at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Fadjar Hutomo, explained that the target for this year's BIP participants is limited to seven creative economy sub-sectors. The seven sectors in question are applications, game developers, crafts, fashion, culinary, film, and the tourism sector.

Unlike last year, the 2021 BIP is divided into two categories, namely the regular BIP and the Business Safety Net BIP (BIP JPU). BIP is also not the same as the tourism grant program which is also being prepared by the government.

Regular BIP is government incentive assistance intended to increase working capital and/or investment in fixed assets in the context of increasing business capacity and/or production of creative and creative business actors.

Meanwhile, the Business Safety Net BIP is government incentive assistance intended for additional working capital and/or fixed asset investment in order to assist tourism and creative economy business actors for the sustainability of their business, especially due to the effects of the pandemic.

"Business entities that register for both the regular category and the public prosecutor must have a Business Entity Identification Number (NIB)," said Fadjar.

Furthermore, Fadjar said, today's 2021 BIP socialization activity is expected to provide an overview to the public, especially tourism and creative economy business actors, to understand the intricacies of the BIP program. Including the procedures, stages, requirements and others, as well as encouraging business actors who meet the requirements to take part in this program.

"Later on, the incentive assistance funds can be used for working capital/fixed capital, renting or buying software and hardware, renting workspaces or paying for services," he explained.