Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno believes it is time for fashion businesses in Indonesia to make innovations and collaborations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Fashion has become one of the three top-notch sectors in the creative economy and is also our leading exports,” Uno stated during a webinar on the topic “Sustainable Fashionpreneurship: The New Era of Fashionpreneurship” held by Mata Garuda, an organization of the Finance Ministry’s Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) scholarship awardees through a press release here on Saturday.
Apart from Minister Uno, the webinar, as part of the 2021 Business Fair, also presented some respectable speakers, including Industry Ministry’s Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Gati Wibawaningsih; Cooperative and SME Ministry’s SMESCO President Director Leonard Theosabrata; Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry’s Director of Access to Finance Hanifah Makarim; and Vice President of PT Sri Rejeki Isman (Srtitex) Iwan Kurniawan Lukminto.
Innovations and collaborations are required so that designers and the fashion industry are able to compete in the international arena, Uno emphasized.
He expressed the ministry’s readiness to facilitate the fashion entrepreneurs.
Moreover, a speaker, representing the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry’s directorate of access to finance, Dewitri Anggraini, noted that creative economy, in particular, the fashion sub-sector is able to play an important role in the attempts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Anggraini pointed out that the fashion business can empower human resources, reduce waste, and also increase collaborations.
“One of the steps that we can take is to utilize recycled materials to preserve nature,” she remarked.
On the other hand, the 2021 Business Fair Chairman Zaid Hanan is optimistic that the webinar would offer innovations and new networks for collaboration, facilitated by the government and garment entrepreneurs.
“I am optimistic that by presenting the regulator in this webinar, this event would help address the growing anxiety faced by fashion entrepreneurs in Indonesia at this moment,” Hanan stated.
Business Fair is a part of an event organized by the LPDP’s Mata Garuda aimed at being a platform to brainstorm, collaborate, and support the business ecosystem for LPDP’s scholarship awardees and the public in pursuit of creating new and strong businesses that can contribute to boosting economic growth.
“The event is organized, so that Mata Garuda can be an organization that is financially independent and has real impacts on the public through its business activities,” he remarked.
The 2021 Business Fair, held since January 2021, commenced with the business discussion forum and was followed by a business exhibition facilitated by the OCBC bank.
