President Prabowo Inaugurates 80,000 Red and White Village Cooperatives: We’re Starting a Big Business
KLATEN,– President of the Republic of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto, inaugurated the Red and White Village/Sub-district Cooperative National Program (KDMP) in Bentangan Village, Wonosari District, Klaten Regency, Central Java, on Monday (July 21). This program targets the establishment of 80,081 cooperatives spread across all villages and sub-districts in Indonesia, as an effort to build the people’s economy from the bottom up.
“So today is indeed a historic day. We are starting a major undertaking,” said President Prabowo in his remarks. He emphasized that cooperatives are a tool for empowering vulnerable groups in society to build collective economic strength.
“The concept of cooperatives is a concept of the weak, a concept for the weak. The strong don’t want anything to do with cooperatives,” he said.
According to the President, cooperatives are a concrete form of economic mutual cooperation. He likened them to a collection of wooden sticks.
“One stick is weak, not strong enough. But if dozens, hundreds, of sticks are combined, this is a tool that can help us,” he said.
In the same place, Coordinating Minister for Food, Zulkifli Hasan, reported that 80,081 cooperatives had been established and were legally valid.
“We started by utilizing existing assets such as village halls, unused school buildings, other government assets, and all the local potential that had been scattered around,” he explained.
The KDMP inauguration was attended by several ministers from the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet, including Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian, Village Minister Yandri Susanto, Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman, Cooperatives Minister Budi Arie Setiadi, and Deputy Village Minister Ahmad Riza Patria. Hundreds of village heads from across Indonesia also attended the program’s launch.
The Merah Putih Cooperative is expected to become the foundation of the village economy that integrates the food, agriculture, and home industry sectors in a sustainable manner.*
