Luhut Orders Shopee Bosses: I Ask Them To Sell Indonesian Local MSME Products

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (Photo: Doc. Kemenko Marves)

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, continues to encourage Indonesian micro, small and medium enterprises or MSMEs to advance to class. This is done by asking one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the country, namely Shopee, to sell local MSME products.

Furthermore, Luhut claimed to have contacted the founders of Shopee. He also lobbied for the company to bring in more local goods. According to him, this was well received and approved by the founders of the company.

"Last night I also spoke with the founders of Shopee, I asked them to come with domestic goods and the owner said he was willing and had done and will continue to do so", said Luhut at the launch of the Proudly Made in Indonesia #PelangiSulawesi Movement, Thursday, August 26.

Luhut said, to achieve the target of SMEs who are digital market literate, all parties must be assisted. On that basis, he asked Shopee to step down as well as a place to accelerate the digitization.

Luhut also reminded that local governments, especially, must definitely become brand ambassadors for MSMEs. Moreover, he said, this sector is the backbone of the national economy.

"Must all regional officials be brand ambassadors, show that the government is there for MSMEs. The backbone of the national economy, without MSMEs our economy could not be until now", he said.

Based on Luhut's report, as of August 2021, as many as 15.5 million MSMEs have been onboarding towards business digitization. Luhut also welcomed it. Because digitalization is a necessity and technological developments cannot be dammed.

"From May 2020 to July 2021, the number of MSMEs onboarding has reached more than 7.2 million, so now it has reached 15.5 million or more", he said.

"I think this is very good now that all digitalization is being carried out. I mentioned the health problem that we are all digitizing, without realizing that this country is very advanced in technology", he continued.