Encouraging Economic Equality, Ultra Micro Businesses Can Go Up Class Through Three SOEs

BRI Bank branch office. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Ultra micro business actors can move up a class, so that the Indonesian economy can be accelerated optimally. This is in line with the potential of the ultra-micro sector in the MSME landscape in Indonesia.

For this reason, PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk or BRI is ready to encourage economic equality in Indonesia through Ultra Micro Holding.

"We often hear that 98 percent of the 64 million business units are micro and ultra micro businesses. I tried to map out how big the ultra micro is, it turns out that from 98 percent, 81.8 percent are ultra micro," said Director of Micro Business BRI Supari, quoted by Antara. , Saturday 19 February.

Therefore, BRI's efforts with PT Permodalan Nasional Madani (PNM) and PT Pegadaian in Holding Ultra Micro can expand its reach to serve more customers.

Supari explained that the target is also contained in BRI's vision to become The Most Valuable Banking Group in South East Asia and Champion of Financial Inclusion by 2025.

"In the future it will not be literacy but inclusion first, give access first and then there will be a motivation to want to learn. Now Indonesia's inclusion is only 76 percent, we will push it to 90 percent in 2024," he said.

The Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (UKM) positively welcomes the Ultra Micro Holding entity led by PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk which is considered to have a major role in realizing economic equality in Indonesia and can encourage financial inclusion.

Indonesia's seriousness in restoring the Ultra Micro and MSME business sector can be seen from the presence of MSME financial inclusion in the G20 priority agenda, where banking is the motor in boosting productivity and supporting economic and financial inclusion for the underserved community.

Expert Staff to the Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs for Productivity and Competitiveness Yulius said Ultra Micro Holding could be a solution to access financing for ultra micro businesses in order to increase their productivity, so that there is potential for promotion to class and people's welfare.

"This effort is expected to be able to more evenly distribute development and our poverty rate is still quite high, especially in line with the pandemic, which is 17.76 percent. This is in line with what is expected with this ultra-micro," said Yulius.

Yulius said that Indonesia was still experiencing quite high economic inequality as reflected in the Gini ratio of 0.381 as of September 2021, but this figure actually improved compared to March 2021 which was 0.384.

The existence of Ultra Micro Holding is a financing holding aimed at providing MSMEs with more integration and coordination, so that it is hoped that cheaper financing costs will be obtained with a wider reach, it is easier for people to apply for loans, and there is assistance.

He also encouraged MSME actors who mostly work in the informal sector to switch to the formal sector so that access to financing is easier to obtain through the administration of a Business Identification Number (NIB) for business legality registered by the government.

"The number of NIBs has reached more than 17 million micro-enterprises. We hope that it will increase, because by moving to formal, it will be easier for them to be able to access banking," he said.