Sandiaga Uno Pushes Gekraf To Be The Front Guard For The Revival Of The Indonesian Creative Economy Sector

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno (center). (Photo: Doc. Kemenparekraf)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno has encouraged the National Creative Economy Movement (Gekraf) to become the front guard in reviving the creative economy sector in Indonesia.

"We hope that Gekraf will continue to make the creative economy a locomotive," said Sandiaga in a press release, Thursday, January 19.

Menparekraf Sandiaga said that there had been a number of achievements from the targets set in an effort to revive the tourism sector and the creative economy throughout 2022.

A number of these achievements, namely the number of foreign tourist arrivals which reached 5.2 million visits from the target of 3.6 million, then the movement of domestic tourists from the target of 600 million to 700 million.

Then, the archipelago's tourism foreign exchange reached US$5.2 billion from the target of US$1.7 billion.

Next, the added value of the Indonesian parekraf sector which exceeded IDR 1,276 trillion.

In addition, the export value of Indonesian parekraf also reached US$24.5 billion.

Meanwhile, regarding job creation, said Sandiaga, there were an additional 3.7 million new jobs in the parekraf sector.

"These are all very happy achievements and we should be grateful for," he said.

Then, Sandiaga explained, the target of achieving the parekraf sector in 2023, in which the number of foreign tourist visits is targeted to reach 7.4 million visits and the movement of domestic tourists is targeted to reach 1.4 billion.

Therefore, he also invited Gekraf to participate in collaborating, innovating, and adapting with the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy and various other related parties to achieve this target.

"We hope that with this Gekraf, we can collaborate (to achieve the target), especially in the creative economy sector, such as culinary, craft, and fashion," he said.

Apart from that, Sandiaga said, there will be fundamental changes in terms of access to finance this year.

This is because Government Regulation (PP) Number 24 of 2022 concerning the Creative Economy has come into effect, in which creative economy actors can submit their works whose intellectual property rights have been registered as collateral for loans to financial institutions.

"So PP 24 allows us to make intellectual property rights an object of financing. So, I am optimistic that Gekraf can become a motor to take advantage of existing opportunities," he concluded.