Minister Of Teten: SMEs Can Hold Unemployment Rate And Reduce The Number Of Poor People

Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (UKM), Teten Masduki. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs, Teten Masduki, said that UKM is currently a buffer for the national economy amidst the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that UKM was able to hold down the unemployment rate and reduce poverty.

"MSMEs have repeatedly faced difficult situations, crises. The advantages of these small SMEs are fast to change. Turning the steering wheel is fast," he said in a webinar held by Warta Ekonomi with the theme "Tips for Creative Innovation for SMEs to Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic. 19; Learning From Survivors and Masters, "on Thursday 8 October.

Teten revealed that this was the reason why the government allocated a large budget for the National Economic Recovery (PEN) program. There is also a loan restructuring program including providing working capital grants for those who are not bankable.

"From the demand side, we are trying to help absorption through spending by ministries and institutions. We have received a commitment from the Ministry of BUMN. Capex below Rp. 14 billion is now earmarked for MSMEs," he added.

In addition, Kemenkop UKM has made several mentoring, consultation, training programs, either online or virtual. The goal is to help SMEs adapt and make business innovations in response to new developments, particularly in terms of technology.

"Now only 13 percent of our MSMEs are connected to the digital platform. We encourage acceleration, transformation, because this will provide benefits, greater market access, including access to finance," he explained.

In fact, large-scale digital platform providers can access more than 97 percent of Indonesia's territory. However, Teten admits that not all SMEs can sell on digital platforms on a national market scale, given their limited production capacity and human resources.

"This will be very helpful for SMEs. Now there are many digital platforms with smaller markets, namely at the regional level. We also provide a simple digital platform, e-Brochure Smesco, to help MSMEs that are not ready to sell on a larger digital platform. , "he explained.

From there, the Kemenkop UKM will conduct education, curation, and incubation so that businesses are ready to enter the digital platform. The demand for digitization is even more urgent, because according to the records of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises, during the pandemic, daily digital sales transactions or via e-commerce during the second quarter of 2020 reached IDR 4.8 million, a significant increase compared to the same period the previous year which was still IDR 3.1 million. .

Meanwhile, the percentage of consumers shopping online for the first time during the implementation of Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) reached 51 percent.