Trade Minister Budi Encourages MSMEs To Have Competitiveness To Defeat Imported Products

Minister of Trade Budi Santoso. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Trade (Mendag) Budi Santoso encourages micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to have high competitiveness so that domestic products do not lose to imported goods.

Budi said that courage is needed to innovate so that the products produced are competitive, such as having quality and attractive packaging, attractive product designs to distinctive characteristics.

"Anyway, if we have good competitiveness, we will not lose to imports. That's why we taught MSMEs earlier, for example, we have assistance, it's not just design but packaging and all kinds of things are taught, so we have competitiveness with other countries," Budi said in Jakarta, quoted by Antara, Saturday, February 22.

Export competitive products, said Budi, automatically have global standards and can meet the qualities that domestic consumers want.

Furthermore, Budi said, the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) is also committed to helping MSME-owned international standard products enter the export market.

One way is to carry out business presentation activities (pitching) with Indonesian trade representatives in 33 trading partner countries and business matching with foreign buyers. Through these activities, the Ministry of Trade seeks to bring together MSMEs with potential buyers in various countries.

From this activity, MSME players will be introduced to potential buyers by Atdag and Perwadag. In January 2025, there was a potential export transaction from business assessment of 5.22 million US dollars or Rp85.48 billion.

This value consists of purchase transactions of 1.55 million US dollars and potential transactions in the form of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) of 3.67 million US dollars.

"The pitching is that MSMEs introduce their products for presentations, after the presentation, they have to look for buyers. So we give them the opportunity to find buyers, after pitching they have to look for buyers," said Budi.