VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta (voinews): The Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is targeting to create one million established young entrepreneurs by the end of 2024.

"The creation of established young entrepreneurs is carried out by cooperating with several business incubators in various universities," Cooperatives and SMEs Minister Teten Masduki remarked here on Wednesday.

Masduki noted that currently, the ministry is targeting entrepreneurs from the university community.

Masduki elaborated that one of the forms of collaboration carried out by the ministry is cooperation with the Merdeka Malang University. The government is aiming to prepare micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) players that have innovative business models and competitive products.

He noted that cooperation with business incubators in universities would help in zeroing in on students, who already have businesses and innovative ideas to start businesses.

"We are working with incubators in universities to prepare students, who have started a business and have ideas to run a business," he remarked.

The minister remarked that students, who have started to run their own businesses, would be provided assistance by his ministry to develop their business potential, including in the process of obtaining business licenses.

He affirmed that the government will also open access to finance, including opening opportunities to expand market access.

Masduki assessed that MSME players should be able to create innovative products in order to compete with those from abroad, considering that currently, e-commerce is still dominated by foreign products.

"This is a challenge for MSME players in the country, so that there is an improvement in the quality of products," he affirmed.

He further drew attention to several good business ideas from prospective young entrepreneurs in the country. However, he acknowledged that challenges existed, such as in the form of access to finance to develop businesses and their capacities.

"I think there are many (young entrepreneurs) that only need to develop their businesses. However, there are those whose products are less innovative. Thus, their markets are still small. They need to be directed to target products that have quite broad and strong markets," he remarked. (Antaranews)