Day: October 2, 2021

Dubai, UEA Trade Minister Muhammad Lutfi is mulling on turning the Indonesia Pavilion at the World Expo 2020 Dubai into a center to showcase MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprise) products after the expo ends.

“We are offering the option, we are not limiting it, but we cannot decide yet,” Lutfi told ANTARA in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday.

The minister said he will wait for the decision of the UAE government regarding the next steps for the venue of the World Expo 2020 after the event’s closing on March 31, 2022.

According to him, if the UAE government decides to make this location a crowd center, then the Indonesia Pavilion will remain in place and promote Indonesian culture and diversity.

Source: ANTARA News

Vice President Ma’ruf Amin has urged all cooperatives in Indonesia to adapt to digital technology to provide the best services to their members and the community.

All stakeholders and players in the cooperatives sector in Indonesia should make efforts to transform the image of cooperatives into a more modern one, he said at the grand launching event of Nasari Digital via video conferencing from here on Saturday.

“It is time for cooperatives to be able to adapt with environmental changes and do digital transformation; they must change the image of cooperatives to become modern, both in business management, member services, and access to financing,” the Vice President remarked, while speaking from his official residence here.

He said the Indonesian government has continued its commitment to meeting the infrastructure needs of the telecommunications and information sector to support the digital transformation of cooperatives.

Source: ANTARA News

Special Staff of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Erick Thohir, Arya Sinulingga, has encouraged digital training at Rumah BUMN (SOE Training House) to increase MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprise) sales.

“With the training in digital marketing for MSMEs in Rumah BUMN and applying (the learned knowledge), hopefully, MSMEs can grow,” he said in a written statement received here on Saturday.

According to Sinulingga, during the COVID-19 pandemic, physical sales of MSMEs declined, but they got a significant boost through online sales.

Earlier, he visited the Central Jakarta Rumah BUMN that is managed by Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI).

Source: ANTARA News

State-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia and public housing savings agency BP Tapera are collaborating to strengthen financing for cheap housing so that people can purchase affordable and livable homes across Indonesia, an official has said.

“BRI cooperates with BP Tapera in data bank management that links information between developers’ supply and demand from the Housing Financing Liquidity Facilities (FLPP) applicants,” BRI’s institutional and state-owned enterprises director, Agus Noorsanto, informed in a statement received here on Saturday.

As of the end of August 2021, BRI has financed subsidized housing loans for more than 19,298 customers, he said.

The financing was conducted by BRI to continue to support government programs so that people can access cheap, decent, safe, and comfortable home financing, he added

Source: ANTARA News

Surakarta, Central Java Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka has affirmed his commitment to improving the city’s two batik tourism villages, Kauman and Laweyan, to attract more tourists.

During his visit to the Kauman batik village to commemorate National Batik Day on Saturday, Mayor Raka pointed to the urgent need for improving road access to the batik village.

“Kauman batik village infrastructure should be improved, and we should repair the damaged road as it is the main access to the village,” he stated.

The mayor is committed to allocating a portion of the municipal budget for the batik village’s improvement in the next budget year.

Besides improving road access to Kauman batik village, Mayor Raka also proposed to designate several points on the Slamet Riyadi Road, the city square, and the Vastenburg Fort, as parking centers for tourists.

Source: ANTARA News

Jakarta Financial inclusion should be strengthened amid the growth of financial technology, or fintech, corporations in Indonesia, an economics expert from Padjajaran University has said.

“Financial technology is expected to be able to improve standards of living since we can conduct transactions in a more modern, easier, and efficient manner,” a lecturer from the University’s Economy and Business Faculty, Prof. Ilya Avianti, said during a webinar on the ‘Fintech Ecosystem in Indonesia’ on Saturday.

According to Avianti, financial inclusion is important since it is tied to the prosperity of citizens in a country.

The higher the financial inclusion index of a nation, the more prosperous its citizens are, she explained.

Source: ANTARA News

Local software engineers should work on improving their soft skills in addition to their technical skills, member of the House of Representatives’ (DPR’s) Commission X, Bramantyo Suwondo, stated.

“There are plenty of engineering graduates, who are quite good, but they lack soft skills, such as collaboration, public speaking, communication, and language. Learning soft skills, such as public speaking, is best through direct practice,” Suwondo noted in his statement received here on Saturday.

The House member also called on software engineers to be more active and dynamic in preparing themselves to meet the needs of the industry that is developing swiftly.

In Germany, the industry’s requirements always align with what is taught in the world of education, so their graduates possess the requisite industry-specific skills, he pointed out.

Source: ANTARA News