Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki said his party was looking for various domestic advantages that Indonesia had to be processed into products by Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) so that they could compete with products from other countries. One of the aims of this is to get Indonesia out of the middle-income trap to become an industrial country. "If it's still chipped, I think it will be tough," he said at a virtual event, Jakarta, Tuesday. President Joko Widodo is said to have directed the industrialization or downstream of mining products and plantation products. In this case, Teten assesses that MSME actors need to work on Indonesia's marine resources. "Only 4% of large investors enter it (the marine sector)," he said. For now, MSMEs that are still learning to make products are said to be able to take advantage of the domestic market, including government spending, as an effort to increase competitiveness with foreign products.

"So now you make a product, the government will definitely buy it, so there is an opportunity to continue to improve the quality of the product," said the Coordinating Minister. However, he reminded MSME actors to produce goods that have a market demand from the government side or public consumption. In the future, he continued, MSMEs must be ready to compete with various foreign products, both in the domestic and foreign markets. "Our MSMEs cannot be continuously protected, but our MSMEs must be prepared to fight," said Teten.

Source: https://m.antaranews.com/berita/2761545/menkop-dorong-produk-umkm-bersaing-dengan-produk-asing