Rudiantara Invites Global Startups to Move Business to Indonesia

Nusa Dua, InfoPublik - Communications and Information Technology Minister Rudiantara invited global digital startup companies to move their business base to Indonesia.

He reckoned that Indonesia, with a high population and internet penetration, has great potential in developing digital economy. Education (edutech) and health (healthtech) are the most potential sectors.

"Digital startups and venture capitalists have great opportunity to work on these two sectors because the government has disbursed large fund for them," he explained in the event of “NextIcorn International Convention: Digital Paradise Weekend” in Bali, Saturday (13/10).

Rudiantara iterated that the potential of the education sector is very large compared to the state budget. The total amount of the prospective revenue reaches Rp10 trillion.

"Moreover, to become a Unicorn startup, one must receive adequate education. The state budget allocates 20 percent for this sector. This year, the education budget is around Rp400 trillion. As an illustration, from that figure, the value of 2 percent revenue is Rp10 trillion," he explained.

In addition to the education sector, the law also requires the government to allocate 5 percent of the state budget for the health sector. Budget of Rp100 trillion for health can produce Rp2 trillion (2 percent revenue). "It's a big value," he explained.

To encourage digital economic growth, Minister Rudiantara explained that the government would continue to reduce the functions of regulators and further highlight the functions of facilitators and accelerators. "Less as a regulator, more as a facilitator, even more as an accelerator," he said.

With support from the government, Rudiantara believed Bali will become a reference for digital economic development in addition to Beijing (China), Bangalore (India), and Silicon Valley (USA).

Bukalapak Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Teddy Oetomo said startups must be innovative with a perspective to solve problems. "Don't rush into being a Unicorn," he said. The perspective of solving problems will result in useful products.

The NextICorn platform simplifies and promotes Indonesia's potential startups to venture capitalists and investors around the world. NextICorn exclusively invites the most prominent investors from major markets around the world to interact with Indonesia's leading entrepreneurs, local technology investors, and government representatives in Bali.

There were representatives from 13 countries and 125 investors at NextIcorn event. More than 3,200 meetings are scheduled to be carried out. (Source: Kominfo.go.id) (Juli/Translator: Erik Limantara)