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Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. (ANTARA/HO-Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment/am)

Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan has been aggressively involved in efforts to manage the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector to advance the field, including through digitalization.

"Investments cover nearly all areas, but along with Mister Airlangga (Hartarto, the coordinating minister for economic affairs), we are sharing (tasks to advance the sector), and it is going well. The MSME sector should fall under Minister Airlangga's domain, but since the MSME comes in the Creative Economy Board, we agreed to bring the sector under my coordinating ministry," he explained during a work meeting with the House of Representatives' Budget Board in Jakarta, Monday.

Minister Pandjaitan expounded that the Creative Economy Board, currently a part of the Tourism Ministry, is one of the seven ministries and boards under his coordinating ministry.

Although contained within the tourism sector, creative economy is also showing rapid development on the MSME scale. To this end, the government is keen to boost development, in the hopes that it would grow further amid the pandemic.

"We have merely eight million online-based MSMEs, and we will boost (growth), so we can reach 10 million. In the first month, we already have an additional 500 thousand," he noted.

The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs recorded a total of 64.1 million MSME businesspersons in Indonesia, as of the first semester of 2019.

From the total figure, 63.3 million, or 98.6 percent, are microbusinesses.

From the total number, only some 13 percent, or 8.3 million MSMEs have capitalized on digitalization to conduct their businesses. (ANTARA)