TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Lukit Dinarsyah Tuwo, Secretary of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs said that Indonesian small-medium enterprises (SMEs) must be able to increase their export performance in relation to the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).
In order to achieve such goal, Lukita said that SMEs need to increase their capacity to be able to compete in the global market. Currently, the majority Indonesian SMEs rely on other companies to do exports. Lukita explained that SMEs reliance to other companies was due to regulatory obstacles, limiting SMEs business competitiveness.
Some of the obstacles, as Lukita stated, are strict export requirements, requirements applied by target countries, requirements for overseas distribution, and rules on documentation.
Another major obstacle for SMEs is the lack of capacity to engage in export activities, in addition to challenges posed by certification, standardization, packaging, and labelling requirements.
On January 2016, the government have issued its 11th economic policy package that aims to synergize five State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in an effort to provide export consolidate companies that can cater to SMEs needs, and to allow better flow of SMEs goods in the international market.
