Seminar on Indonesia & Russia Business

Today I attended a zoominar discussing business opportunities and challenges between Indonesia and Russia amid the current crises. The organiser is Inaris Forum, and the speakers were the representatives from the government and business.

Before Russian invasion to Ukraine last year, the economic relationship between Indonesia and Russia had been developing steadily, although the total trade was relatively small. According to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, the total bilateral trade volume between the two countries in 2020 was valued at approximately US$ 2.62 billion, with Indonesia recording a trade surplus of around US$ 400 million.

The total value of exports from Indonesia to Russia in 2020 was approximately US$ 1.25 billion, while the value of imports from Russia to Indonesia was around USD 1.37 billion. The biggest export from Indonesia to Russia was palm oil, which accounted for around 57% of total Indonesian exports to Russia. Other significant exports from Indonesia to Russia included rubber, coffee, tea, and textiles. Russia’s main exports to Indonesia were wheat, coal, aluminium, and fertilisers.

BBI Lampung

Welcome to Tegal Mas Island in Lampung Province. Here we were attending the June edition of Gernas BBI, organised by Ministry of Industry and the Indonesian top brands, including Telkom Indonesia.

This event was attended by Coord Minister of Maritime & Investment, Mr Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, as the key speaker.

The main event here — at least for me personally — was the Coordinative Meeting (Rakor) of P3DN program, also led by Mr Luhut. Here Telkom got more roles in the nationwide P3DN program, after proving our commitment to the program in the last months. We’ll talk about it later, but not here. This is not my main blog, anyway :).

On the Garuda flight home, I got a seat just beside Mr Sudarto, the Advisor of the Minister of Finance. We spent about 30 minutes of the flight between Lampung and Jakarta on the continuation of this program; and the sustainability of the program in general.

BBI Prep for North Maluku

September 2022 edition of BBI will be carried out in North Maluku — a province surrounding Northern Moluccas islands. Northern Moluccas was once a central source of global trade even since the Roman era. But currently the economy of this area is not so significant comparing to other areas. With this BBI program, we intend to leverage the MSME economy in these islands.

The campaign manager of this program is The Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration (Kemendesa PDTT). The leader for this program is Ms Harlina Sulistyorini, the DG of Economy Development & Investment.

Telkom will support this program by providing MSME build up program (in collaboration with BNI and other state-owned enterprises) integrated with digital business transformation for the MSME, and a virtual expo to display and promote curated MSME products.

P3DN Business Matching #3

The New Avenger, May 2022 Edition

The third P3DN Business Matching was carried out at JCC Senayan, Jakarta, 30-31 May 2022. The lead of this program is the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, led by the General Secretary, Mr Mohammad Zainal Fatah. He was my mentor in 1990s, but unfortunately we were very busy during this event so we could not talk to each other.

Mr Soendojoadi presented Telkom’s significant & critical roles in P3DN program

Telkom got involved not only as a potential buyer (as a SOE), but also as a provider to offer import-substitution products to Ministries, Institutions, Local Govts, and other SOEs. Besides the business negotiation, we also set a booth displaying digital products, services, and solutions for government & communities.

Telkom’s Booth

We also reported Telkom’s progress to all the P3DN programs (platform integration, MSME build up, MSME listing to the e-Catalog, SOE domestic product purchasing leverage, etc) to Mr Odo Manuhutu, the Deputy of Tourism & Creative Economy Coordination, Kemkomarves. Kemkomarves is the coordinator of all the BBI & P3DN program; reporting directly to the President of Indonesia.

With Mr Odo Manuhutu, the Deputy of Tourism & Creative Economy Coordination, Kemkomarves (30 May)

TEMS Regional Leadership Meeting

TEMS — or the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society — is an IEEE society with a mission to advance, enhance, and improve essential management and leadership knowledge and skills of IEEE members.

The IEEE TEMS Regional Leaders Subcommittee carried out its 1st meeting this year today, with a new team. This meeting was led by Mohamed Aboud, the VP for Membership Development. The TEMS President, Ravikiran Annaswamy, addressed the meeting.

The meeting aims to leverage the program to leverage the TEMS activities in wider areas, and to improve collaborations among TEMS members in engineering management and leadership field. Our field of interest encompasses the management sciences and practices required for defining, implementing, and managing engineering and technology. Specific topics of interest include technology policy development, assessment, and transfer; research; product design and development; manufacturing operations; innovation and entrepreneurship; program and project management; strategy; education and training; organisational development and human behavior; transitioning to management; and the socioeconomic impact of engineering and technology management.

BBI Bukittinggi

Bukittinggi is a small historical and cultural city in West Sumatra province. It was once appointed as the provisional capital of Indonesia when the criminal armed forces of the Netherlands occupied Yogyakarta (i.e. also the provisional capital of Indonesia). The elegant city is located amidst Bukit Barisan mountain, just between Mt Marapi dan Mt Singgalang — giving it a perfect weather, at least for me.

Bukittinggi hosted BBI this month, organised by OJK. It was a special BBI event, since it was attended by the Vice President of Indonesia, and it hosted the launch of the awaited BBI Virtual Expo, designed and provided by Telkom.

The event was carried out at the courtyard of Jam Gadang — the famous clock tower of Bukittinggi.

P3DN Business Matching & SME Expo

In Nusa Dua area of Bali Island, the GoI carried out a business matching event for three days (22-24 March 2022) between Ministries, Govt Institutions, and Local Government on one side, and national industries and SME on the other side. This event also exhibited some national industry associations (organised by Ministry of Industry) and SME (organised by Ministry of Coop & SME).

I will write about the business matching some other time. But the exhibition itself is interesting. Here we displayed nationwide technology-focused entrepreneurs, scoping from weaponry simulation, health facility instruments, tools for agroindustry, and many others.

The Minister of Coop & SME, Mr Teten Masduki, personally visited and talked to the local entrepreneurs. He emphasise the importance of the local industry to improve the quality and production capacity to match the market demand. Also, for the platforms like PADI UMKM, he addressed that such system should be used as a gateway for SMEs to be listed at national industry catalogue to be linked to the market where Ministries etc are targeted to spend 500 trillion rupiah this year.

Ecosystem-Based Logistics Business

One of the activities organised in Indonesia Pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020 iw a business talk carried out today, with an actually exciting topics: Telkom Digital — From Siloes to Ecosystem Platform: Simplifying Digitally-Connected Logistics Ecosystem.

The talk presented yours truly as the clumsy moderator, and the excellent speakers: Mr Saiful Hidayat and Mr Natal Iman Ginting from Telkom Indonesia, Mr Norman Defryzal from Bank Mandiri, Mr Gemilang Tarigan from Aptrindo, and Takao Omori-san the Presdir of NPCT1.

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IMT-GT eCommerce Tech Planning

When I was in Kupang (May 25th), I was invited by the Coordinative Ministry of Economy (Kemko-Ekon) and Ministry of ICT to discuss the implementation of IMT-GT e-Commerce plan. I presented some options we might choose using PADI UMKM as a national hub connected to the IMT-GT Mall. But then the Government addressed us to propose PADI UMKM as the core platform of the IMT-GT e-Commerce program instead.

On the next IMT-GT JBC (Joint Business Council) Meeting (May 28th), we stated the proposal to take over the development and operation of IMT-GT core platform with some alternative business models. At that time, Thailand expressed their dissatisfaction on the business operation plan of the IMT-GT Mall from Malaysia. Also the CIMT (Centre of the IMT-GT Cooperation) mentioned that PADI UMKM has been in operation since last year, while IMT-GT Mall from Malaysia is still in development plan stage.

Today (June 4th) we continue the JBC Meeting with CIMT. Malaysia has stated their desire to maintain their role as IMT-GT e-Commerce hub as decided in 2019; and representing Indonesia, I have agreed to let them continue leading this program with this determined timeline. PADI UMKM will continue to support as the connection between Indonesia MSMEs and the IMT-GT Mall. I also proposed that the operation of each national hub will be independent, so each country may have different business models in designing the operation business of the e-Commerce program. For example, JBC Malaysia prefers that the operation will be carried out by private sector; while Indonesia prefers to use MSME ecosystem program. This result will be reported on the next Convergence Meeting, scheduled on July.