VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said Indonesia will need at least nine million digital talents by 2030 to contribute Rp4.434 trillion to the national economy.

Indonesia's digital economy currently makes up 40 percent of the ASEAN digital economy with a value of 70 billion US dollars which is estimated to  more than double to 146 billion US dollars in 2025, Airlangga said in an official statement released in Jakarta, Sunday.

To that end,  the government will continue to develop digital skills to contribute Rp4,434 trillion to the Indonesian economy in 2030, equivalent to 16 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP)., he said.

"The great potentials for Indonesia's digital economy and digital talents must be taken advantage of properly to accelerate the development of  entrepreneurs," he said.

On the other hand, the country's ratio of entrepreneurs to population which currently stands at  3.47 percent is still relatively low, so that it needs to be continuously improved, he said.

The government is providing support for the development of digital talents through pre-employment cards and the national digital literacy movement for the general public, digital talent scholarships for professional workers, and digital leadership academy for managers.

The government also continues to encourage the digitization of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) so as to increase the productivity of MSMEs.

The Communication and Informatics Ministry (Kominfo) will continue the digital talent development program in 2022 to expedite national digital transformation, Minister Johnny G. Plate earlier said.

The program will start by developing basic skills, he informed.

"The primary attempt is introducing digitization to the community. There are 270 million Indonesians; however, only a very few of them understand digitization," he said at an online event on ‘Digitizing Indonesia: Kominfo’s 2021 Retrospection and 2022 Outlook’ on Tuesday.

Without involving all people in the digital space, the established information and communication technology infrastructure cannot be used optimally, he added.

Hence, the ministry is striving to develop national digital talent through the National Digital Literacy Movement, which was awarded the 2020 World Summit on the Information Society Prize by the International Telecommunication Union.

In 2021, the ministry carried out the program for around 12.5 million people with four basic curricula covering digital skills, digital ethics, digital safety, and digital culture, Plate said.

"For 2021, the program is almost one hundred percent completed. We will continue it in 2022 with the same number of participants," the minister informed.

He said he expected that by the end of 2024, 50 million Indonesians would have received basic digital training.

"Our micro, small, and medium enterprises cannot survive in the future if we do not prepare them to have basic digital skills," he said. (antaranews)