WILAT Indonesia Grows into a Professional Women's Organisation
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Chair of Women in Logistics and Transport (WILAT) Indonesia, Nurmaria Sarosa, stated that in five years, WILAT has grown into a professional women’s organisation with more than 300 members in four major cities.
“Once we were asked, ‘Are there really women in logistics?’ Today, we sit together with organisation members and other associations in decision-making to advocate for and improve Indonesia’s logistics and transport industry to make it even better, so it can compete at a global level,” she said in her statement received in Jakarta on Friday.
WILAT Indonesia commemorated its fifth anniversary on Thursday (23/4) with the theme Navigating Logistics Disruption Amid Rising Geopolitical Tension and held a seminar attended by 200 representatives from government, industry, academia, business players, and global partners.
Nurmaria emphasised the strategic role of women in maintaining Indonesia’s supply chain resilience amid global uncertainties.
Geopolitical tensions such as the Red Sea conflict, the Strait of Hormuz conflict, trade wars, and energy crises have increased freight tariffs by up to 300 percent and added 14-21 days to lead times. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s logistics costs are the highest compared to other ASEAN countries, at 23 percent according to the World Bank version.
WILAT Indonesia views this situation not as a reason to wait, but as an opportunity to strengthen three things: agility through digitalisation, route diversification, and improving and strengthening supplier quality, as well as cross-sector collaboration to promote multimodal and green logistics.
“As industry players, we have a responsibility to work together with the government to lower Indonesia’s logistics costs so that logistics can contribute to economic growth (a 1 percent reduction in logistics costs contributes 0.1-0.3 percent to economic growth),” she said.
On the occasion of its fifth anniversary, WILAT Indonesia launched the WILAT e-Bulletin to disseminate and develop female talent in the fields of digital freight, risk management, and green supply chain.
“The future of Indonesia’s logistics is not built for women, but together with and by women,” said Nurmaria.
Meanwhile, President of CILT Indonesia, Iman Gandhi, stated that WILAT Indonesia is a capable organisation in developing women’s competencies in the logistics and transport industry.
Logistics expert Marco Tieman emphasised that Indonesia’s logistics industry has the opportunity to implement halal logistics because it has a very large market.