President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) inaugurated Sea Labs, a platform owned by Sea as a global technology company that houses Shopee, Garena, and SeaMoney on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Sea launched Sea Labs Indonesia with the aims to grow the digital industry in the country, as well as provide incentive training for new digital talents. Jokowi welcomed the initiative and stated that Indonesia had great potential in the digital economy. Therefore, a conducive ecosystem must be built together. "The potential of Indonesia's digital economy in 2025 is estimated at USD 146 billion. The contribution of the digital economy in Indonesia is projected to increase 8 times in 2030, which is IDR 4,531 trillion," said Jokowi, Tuesday (1/3/2022). "I appreciate what Sea and Sea Labs Indonesia have done, which have invited many of our digital talents to return to the country, which will invite 1,000 people who can return to Indonesia to enter Sea and Sea Labs Indonesia," he continued. Through Sea Labs Indonesia, Sea prepares a curriculum from world-class technology and digital experts, as well as job training opportunities. Sea Labs Indonesia will build a team of 1,000 Indonesian digital talents, especially engineers and product managers. This platform wants to prepare future technopreneurs to help drive Indonesia's digital economy and fulfill its enormous potential. This is in line with the growth of the digital market in the country on an annual basis of 49 percent.
Indonesia has challenges in building a digital ecosystem. On the other hand, many countries, including China and Japan, are also boosting the digital ecosystem in their countries. This means that Indonesia is competing with big countries in the mission of building a digital ecosystem. Deputy Minister of BUMN I Pahala Nugraha Mansury said this needs to be a concern in advancing the digital ecosystem. "In terms of global market pressure for Indonesia is how to build an effective digital ecosystem and we must deal with this together," Pahala said at the Merdeka Economic Forum, Monday (28/2/2022). "Other countries, such as China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, all of them in terms of global competition are trying to build their ecosystems, this is in terms of digitalization competition," he added. Not without reason, Pahala said that global competition in the digitalization sector is both an opportunity and a challenge for Indonesia. Moreover, Indonesia is projected to become one of the countries with the fourth economic power in the world by 2045. "Global competition is, of course, the digitalization of the world so it is borderless, there are no limits, Indonesia can conduct e-commerce transactions from a global platform," he said. One of them is in the health security sector, which is the concern of various countries in the world at this time during the pandemic. "This is how Indonesia improves health resilience, this is how digitalization plays a role," he said.
