Minister: Training for Kopdes Managers to be Completed by Early August
Minister of Cooperatives Ferry Juliantono has said that the training of 30,000 prospective managers for the Red-and-White Village/Neighbourhood Cooperatives (Kopdes Merah Putih) will be completed in early August 2026 before they are placed in cooperatives that are beginning to operate across various regions.
Ferry said that once the training is finished, the managers will be posted directly to their respective cooperatives to support the operations of the programme, which is one of the government’s priorities.
“The activity will finish in early August, and the managers will then be placed in the 30,000 or so Red-and-White Village Cooperatives,” he said at a seminar for students of the 55th Regular Course at the TNI Command and Staff College (Sesko TNI) for the 2026 academic year, held at the Serasan Building of Sesko TNI in Bandung on Wednesday, 8 July 2026, as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Thursday, 9 July 2026.
Beyond preparing human resources, Ferry said the government will also continue the verification and validation of cooperative buildings before they are handed over to village governments.
He said that once construction of the cooperative buildings is complete, the government will carry out verification and validation before the handover of the buildings.
According to him, the Red-and-White Village Cooperative buildings will eventually become village assets, not property of the Ministry of Cooperatives.
He said the public needs to understand this status, because the Red-and-White Village Cooperatives are economic institutions owned by village communities that are expected to strengthen the local economy.
According to data from the Red-and-White Village Cooperative Information System (Simkopdes) as of 9 July 2026, of the 35,870 verified cooperative construction sites, around 20,000 units are currently under construction. Meanwhile, around 15,500 Kopdes Merah Putih have been 100 per cent completed.
Ferry explained that the Red-and-White Village Cooperative Programme is one of the national priority programmes aimed at accelerating economic growth to 8 per cent while reducing the gap between urban and rural areas through cooperative-based economic strengthening.
On that occasion, Ferry also invited the student officers of the 55th Regular Course at Sesko TNI for the 2026 academic year to support the strengthening of the Red-and-White Village Cooperatives as an instrument for equalising national development.
He said the success of the programme depends not only on the government but also requires the support of all elements of the nation, including the TNI, which has close ties with communities down to the village level.