(Unila): The University of Lampung (Unila) undertakes a collaboration program with KemenKop UKM to support the increase of the national entrepreneurship ratio, Wednesday, September 8, 2021.
The collaboration takes the forms of the innovation center program and business incubation to develop entrepreneurship in Lampung Province. Prof. Dr. Karomani, M.Si., the rector of Unila, said that the programs of innovation and business incubation in collaboration with the Kemenkop UKM constitute contribution very beneficial to people of Lampung.
He also claimed that application-based technology and the creative economy developed by Unila could contribute benefits to UMKM in Lampung, providing information and market networks, facilitating access to funding and assistance, as well as increasing information technology capacity as a support for increasing UMKM competitiveness in Indonesia.
“We provide 40 tenants with training to create a range of products in Lampung Province, such as coffee, which is the main commodity of Lampung Province, banana chips and pempek, fish-processed food,” he said.
KemenKop UKM supports funding, approximately Rp549.8 million to incubate 40 UMKM tenants at Unila and the amount of Rp. 135 million for 23 beginner entrepreneurs from Lampung Province.
On the same occasion, Teten Masduki , the Minister of Cooperatives and UKM said that current recording of the Indonesian entrepreneurship ratio is still far from other countries, which has only reached 3.47 percent of the total population in Indonesia.
Other countries, such as Singapore, have recorded an entrepreneurial ratio of 8.9%, Malaysia 4%, Thailand 4%, and developed countries, 12% respectively.
“Our target is to increase the number of entrepreneurs which in turn lead to a developed country with the entrepreneurship ratio of 4%. Indonesia is expected to potentially become a developed country by 2045,” he said.
According to him, recently the government has shifted the approach of assisting UMKM and cooperatives from a bureaucratic approach to a professional or business approach. Business incubators either private or campus, is regarded as being important to foster and develop UMKM.
“We wish our UMKM to compete with foreign UMKM. Therefore, business incubators in campus is mainly aimed to encourage students to be young entrepreneurs with qualified backgrounds,” said Teten.
Further, Teten explained that UMKM practitioners are encouraged to develop excellent commodities in Lampung so that the sustainable business development in Lampung Province should be shortly achieved. This will lead Lampung Province to have specific characteristics, which significantly differ from those of other regions.
Teten would facilitate Indonesian UMKM to actively take part in the national industrial supply chain such as UMKM in Japan, South Korea and China, where UMKM is a part of the industrial production system. We are trying to integrate UMKM with large industries hand in hand with a partnership ecosystem, so that UMKM could be transformed into big industries,” he said.
So far, very few (only 4 percent) Indonesian UMKM has joined the industrial supply chain, which is a very small in number. Therefore, Unila’s business incubator facilitates students to implement creativity and technological innovation products,” he said. [PR Team]
