The micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector plays an important role in the national economy. During the crisis period and the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, the MSME sector was proven to be able to survive and rise to participate in the national economic recovery. Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that MSMEs contributed greatly to national GDP and absorbed around 96.9% of the workforce. The MSME sector fell sharply in the second quarter of 2022, but immediately rose in the following quarter. "Therefore, the government is pushing for a special program for national economic recovery (PEN)," said Airlangga in the webinar "The Contribution of MSMEs to National Economic Recovery Multi stakeholder Collaboration in Empowering MSMEs" which was held last weekend. This webinar was held by the Alumni Family of University of Gadjah Mada (Kagama) in collaboration with PT HM Sampoerna Tbk (Sampoerna) through the umbrella of the Sampoerna program for Indonesia. Airlangga stated, through PEN, the government provides various forms of support for MSMEs affected by Covid-19. The government has realized the PEN program for MSMEs amounting to IDR 121.20 trillion in 2020 and allocated IDR 95.11 in 2021 with a realization of IDR 63.19 trillion by the end of 2021. On the same occasion, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo who is also the General Chair of Kagama said that there are three challenges faced by MSMEs. First, product knowledge. MSMEs believe that their products are good, while consumers may think differently. Second, access to capital. The presence of a number of programs to help access financing from the government needs to be continuously socialized and encouraged through mentoring.
Third, improve assistance, especially for market access or marketing. The government can also be an off taker or a buyer with a record that MSME products are included in the local e-catalog. “We have curated MSMEs to involve Bank Indonesia, OJK, BUMN, BUMD, private sector to enter the e-catalog. But remember that it must be continuous, if there is no assistance, they will forget. One box of money is for sale, pay debts from there, send children to school from there, the bookkeeping is lacking," said Ganjar. One of the private companies that pays special attention to MSME players is Sampoerna, which since 2007 has had an integrated program to assist MSMEs. Ishak Danuningrat, Sampoerna's Head of External Affairs, said the company believes that sustainability means consistently creating long-term value by contributing to the environment and surrounding communities. Rooted in the three-handed philosophy, Sampoerna consistently helps develop MSMEs in order to support PEN under the umbrella of the “Sampoerna for Indonesia” sustainability program. "We are here to consistently foster MSMEs to explore regional potential, increase competitiveness and empower the surrounding community. Sampoerna believes that coaching can have a long-term impact," he said. Ishak explained that for the development of MSMEs, Sampoerna has two programs, namely the Sampoerna Entrepreneurship Training Center (SETC) and the Sampoerna Retail Community (SRC). SETC has been present since 15 years ago in Pasuruan, East Java on an area of 27 hectares (ha). SETC is here to provide training and development of MSMEs that utilize resources in each region, such as agriculture to culinary. The SETC training has reached more than 56,000 participants and is conducted in more than 100 cities and districts. “In Central Java, Sampoerna also pays attention to the preservation of batik. One of them is in Lasem, Rembang. Lasem batik has a distinctive style, namely a combination of Javanese batik motifs and Chinese patterns. So far, 42 batik makers have received assistance benefits," he said. Ishak added that Sampoerna also supports the Hetero Program in Central Java. Hetero is a startup competition initiated by Ganjar to empower young people who have the desire and belief to find solutions to problems in a certain scope. "One of the MSMEs that has succeeded through the Hetero program is Tambiyaku, an affordable healthy food business made from sorghum," he explained. On the other hand, SRC focuses on increasing the competitiveness of grocery stores in order to survive and thrive. SRC has been around since 2008 and now has around 165,000 grocery stores spread across Indonesia. Through SRC, Sampoerna also supports digitization for grocery stores with the AYO SRC application. This application has several features that help grocery stores make transactions, such as ordering goods from wholesalers/agents, to paylater services.
