The Strategic Role of Communities and MSME Actors to Accelerate Indonesia’s Economic Recovery
By : Ananda Prameswari )*
The strategic role of the community as well as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and the assistance of programs from the Indonesian Government have all proven to be very effective in continuing to encourage the acceleration of national economic recovery.
It is known that Indonesia has a national entrepreneurship ratio target in the Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMN) of 3.9 percent and also new entrepreneurial growth of 4 percent in 2024. Regarding this matter, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Airlangga Hartarto, reiterated the direction put forward by the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, that this nation has a huge opportunity to accelerate national economic recovery.
Regarding the efforts put forward by President Jokowi, Airlangga Hartarto then also gave a very high appreciation to how the community participated in supporting all Indonesian Government programs in providing facilities for the growth and development of entrepreneurship in the country.
Because indeed only with the support of all parties, the acceleration of national economic recovery can really be carried out optimally and according to predetermined targets. Not only that, but the role of the community is also able to continue to develop the world of entrepreneurship in Indonesia so that it can increase even more and become the backbone for economic fundamentals.
Furthermore, with the decreasing positive cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia and how the implementation of vaccinations continues to be intensified by the Government so that it succeeds in reaching all corners of the country until it succeeds in increasing people’s immunity very high to fight the pandemic, the Coordinating Minister for Airlangga stated that currently the performance recorded by the retail sector has shown significant improvement.
In fact, the increase in the performance of the retail sector has occurred since the first quarter of 2021. Then, several shopping sub-groups have also experienced an increase since the same period until now, some of which are the supermarket, restaurant, medical, household to fashion sectors.
Furthermore, based on the release of Indonesian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) data, it has also managed to show very encouraging and something to be proud of, in which the manufacturing sector in the country has continued to experience accelerated growth since April 2021, even by recording the highest record in position 54.6, which means it is better than the previous position, namely 53.2.
With this, it is clear that the MSME sector is the most important pillar in the Indonesian economy, because during the pandemic turmoil until the issue of a world recession emerged due to the geopolitical conflict that occurred between Ukraine and Russia which had a long impact affecting the financial conditions of many other developed countries, it is proven that MSMEs continue to be the support and backbone of the country’s economy.
Based on data from the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, the number of MSMEs currently in Indonesia has even exceeded 64 million with their successful contribution in increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 61.07 percent or a value of 8,573.89 trillion rupiahs.
Some concrete things related to how the MSME sector contributes to the economy in Indonesia are its ability to absorb up to around 97 percent of the total workforce in Indonesia. Not only that, but the MSME sector itself is able to collect up to 60.4 percent of the total investment in Indonesia.
To further the success of how the MSME sector performs in improving and contributing to accelerating national economic recovery, the Indonesian Government has also implemented a series of programs to continue to support MSMEs. Some of these programs are the provision of incentive assistance and also financing through the accelerated National Economic Recovery (PEN) program.
Furthermore, several other series of programs are the provision of People’s Business Credit (KUR), the Proudly Made in Indonesia National Movement (Gernas BBI), Digitalization of MSME marketing, Strengthening Alumni Entrepreneurs of the Pre-Employment Card Program through KUR Financing to include a long-term strategy to increase the MSMEs class through the enactment of the Law -The Job Creation Law (UU) that has been ratified.
It is said that the MSME marketing digitalization program is very important because it is absolutely undeniable that the other impacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the world have also caused a change in the pattern of consumption of goods and services carried out by the public from previously dominated offline to online. This change is indicated by an increase in internet traffic of around 15 to 20 percent.
Therefore, with the shift in people’s consumption patterns, the momentum to accelerate digital transformation is becoming increasingly important. Moreover, so far the potential possessed by the MSME sector is wide open so that all strategic efforts from the community to MSME actors and government programs will be able to effectively accelerate national economic recovery.
)* The author is a contributor to Media Space
