The Governor of East Java, Khofifah Indar Parawansa, invites the world of Islamic boarding schools and universities to increase their contribution to strengthening the sharia economic ecosystem in Indonesia. This is done to accelerate the achievement of Indonesia's target as a global hub for the world's Islamic economy. The invitation was conveyed by Governor Khofifah when she was the Keynote Speaker at the Studium Generale of the Nahdlatul Ulama University (UNU) West Nusa Tenggara which took the theme of Islamic Economics and People's Independence Towards a New Flow of Indonesian Economy at the Prime Park Hotel Mataram, Wednesday (19/1/2022). Khofifah said the ecosystem needed institutional support, human resources (HR), research and development, regulation, branding, and digital technology. Therefore, she hopes that the UNU NTB academic community can take a role in each of these sectors.
According to Khofifah, Indonesia is a country with a great opportunity to become the Epicenter of World Islamic Economic Development. She explained, quoted from data released by Good News From Indonesia (GNFI), in 2020 Indonesia registered itself as an Islamic State with the Largest Economic Scale from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Countries. Here, Indonesia's economic scale is recorded at 1,088,768 million dollars. "Indonesia's Islamic Economic Ecosystem already exists. Students can certainly see this potential and build strong synergies to make Indonesia the largest economic center among Islamic countries," she said. Khofifah said that this could be a starting point for Islamic students to focus more on the economic sector. In this case, one of them is developing an entrepreneurial spirit among the higher education community. Where Islamic universities have the potential to become pioneers of economic growth in Indonesia and the world. “The entrepreneurial spirit must be instilled and practiced. Students must be able to be part of strengthening the Indonesian economy and even the world. We often see entrepreneurs from among students, pesantren, and sociopreneurs," she said.
Regarding the halal industry, Khofifah said, "The process of institutionalizing the Halal Center by universities will be able to accelerate halal certification, especially food and beverage (F&B) in NTB," she added. Khofifah hopes that this Halal Center can help accelerate the certification of Halal food and beverages. Especially considering that this year's target for BPJPH is to certify 10 million items of Halal products. In addition to the Halal Center, Khofifah continued, the marketing of halal products can be supported by the application of digitization such as the Halal Product Information System (Sipahala). This is considering that the halal industry does not only come from IKM but also SMEs and microbusinesses. In the end, Khofifah appealed to Islamic students everywhere to always build togetherness and harmony. This, according to her, is a way to keep the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia intact, safe in unity and brotherhood.
