VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - The Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is collaborating with Statistics Indonesia (BPS) to carry out the 2023 Cooperatives and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Complete Data Collection.

The data collection is an effort to encourage the creation of a single database of cooperatives and MSMEs in Indonesia.

"We invite heads of offices in cooperatives and SMEs fields and BPS (regional office) heads in all provinces to collaborate and update the collected data," Cooperatives and SMEs Minister Teten Masduki noted in his official statement here on Friday.

In last year's data collection, the ministry accrued data of nine million MSMEs. In 2023, the data collection will target 215 districts and cities in 32 provinces.

According to Masduki, single data is essential for 64 million MSMEs in Indonesia that are still facing challenges, including related to access to financing, markets, and adequate information technology.

"To support MSME players in tackling those problems, the government needs (to ensure) the availability of data and information that can give an overview of the needs of MSME players in the country as well as for planning and evaluation purposes," he remarked.

According to Acting Head of BPS Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti, the availability of single data of cooperatives and MSMEs that is updated and managed continuously as a "single source of truth" is vital for the government and other data users.

"The availability of a single database of cooperatives and MSMEs is useful in supporting the accuracy and effectiveness of government policies as well as in setting targets for community empowerment programs," she remarked.

To this end, she invited all MSME players to participate in data collection by providing factual data to the officers.

Several pressing reasons behind creating a single database for the development of MSMEs in the country, include to become a means of development planning and a basis for determining beneficiaries, as well as for measuring MSME performance using certain indicators.

The 2023 Cooperatives and MSMEs Complete Data Collection is being conducted from September 15 to October 14, 2023.

The information collected includes information on the business unit that comprises the name and address of the business, information on business players, and information on business characteristics. (Antaranews)