Women play a crucial role in ensuring the resilience of the nation’s families and the country’s economy, the Cooperatives and SMEs Ministry stated.

Based on data from Statistics Indonesia in 2021, 64.5 percent of the total MSMEs were micro-scaled enterprises managed by women.

“As many as 64.2 million MSMEs, or around 99 percent of MSMEs, are micro-enterprises which contribute 61.07 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 60.4 percent to investment, and 14.3 percent to exports,” Deputy for Entrepreneurship at the Cooperatives and SMEs Ministry Siti Azizah said at the kick-off of AKSI (Business Acceleration) for Women held by Stellar Women and Tjufoo, here on Thursday.

The government intends to increase the number of SMEs to strengthen the nation’s economic structure. One of the measures they took was to encourage 30 million MSMEs to adopt the digital ecosystem.

Data from August 2022 stated that as many as 20.24 million MSME players, or 31.1 percent of MSMEs, had participated in e-commerce platforms.

“To improve the quality of business players, an entrepreneurial spirit is needed to create (good) character so that they could conduct a process towards a success supported by an integrated ecosystem,” Azizah said.

The government also promoted the development of national entrepreneurship, as listed in Presidential Regulation number 2 of 2022. The development of women entrepreneurs was one of the five focuses of national entrepreneurship development goals.

Women Business Acceleration was expected to be able to motivate women entrepreneurs, in terms of innovating, being creative, and collaborating by utilizing digital technology in the development of women entrepreneurs’ businesses.

“The connection of upstream and downstream value chains with entrepreneurial mindsets and behavior in an integrated ecosystem is the key to improving the national entrepreneurship ratio and creating new entrepreneurs who are innovative, sustainable, and can offer job opportunities,” she said.

She mentioned that her administration was ready to collaborate in building an innovative ecosystem with all stakeholders to create established, novice entrepreneurs.

“We truly appreciate this activity as a form of commitment and support from Tjufoo and Stellar Women, who prioritize gender equality through women empowerment in business and entrepreneurship,” she noted.

Source: Antara News