Minister urges MSMEs to join cooperatives for access to financing and government programmes

Surabaya, East Java (ANTARA) - Minister of Cooperatives Ferry Juliantono has urged micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) players to join cooperatives in order to access assistance and support from the Ministry of Cooperatives through the Revolving Fund Management Institution (LPDB). “With the cooperative as a platform, business activities can become more productive and serve as an alternative for economic development in Pamekasan, and indeed across all regions in Indonesia,” he stated in a release received in Surabaya on Wednesday.

Ferry noted that the Ministry of Cooperatives, via the LPDB, is ready to provide mentoring and financing schemes for cooperatives. Furthermore, he said, there are opportunities for partnerships with third parties, allowing Islamic boarding school-based business units to grow professionally. Therefore, he emphasised that these facilities can also be enjoyed by MSMEs if they join a cooperative.

This push comes as government policy is currently focused on strengthening cooperatives through a transformation aimed at restoring their role as a pillar of the national economy, on par with state-owned enterprises and the private sector. He explained that this transformation includes the rebranding of cooperatives, improvements in governance, and digitalisation. The ministry is also encouraging the development of cooperatives in the production, distribution, and industrial sectors.

Ferry explained that the government has issued various new regulations and policies that provide cooperatives with a much broader scope of operations. This scope includes mining business permits, idle oil wells, the collection of used cooking oil and biomass for energy, and the establishment of crude palm oil (CPO) factories and their derivative products, such as cooking oil. Other opportunities include building diesel filling stations for fishermen, cold storage facilities, and ice factories. In the environmental sector, cooperatives are being encouraged to engage in sustainable waste management and the creative economy, such as content creation and animation, as well as the construction of solar power plants.

As a pillar of village-based economic development, President Prabowo Subianto has launched the priority national programme for the ‘Merah Putih’ Village Cooperative. The President has also ordered that all subsidised goods be distributed directly through these cooperatives, including direct cash assistance, social assistance, non-cash food aid, and microcredit financing under a channeling scheme. “This cooperative is designed not merely as a social institution, but as a profit-oriented business entity that provides direct benefits to the community,” Ferry said.