President Jokowi Praises BRI’s Commitment to Encouraging Economic Growth through Financial Inclusion

JAKARTA – The government continues to be committed to continuing to encourage financial inclusion which is the foundation for sustainable economic growth. At the opening of the BRI Microfinance Outlook 2024 in Jakarta, Thursday (7/3/2024), Indonesian President Joko Widodo said that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) deserve great attention considering that the number of MSMEs has reached 65.1 million.

“We know that the number of our MSMEs is approximately 65 million, more or less, and the contribution to our economic GDP is 61 percent which is very large and labor absorption in the MSME sector is 97 percent, a figure which is also very large,” he said.

President Jokowi also praised BRI’s role in empowering MSMEs in remote villages. “If we pay special attention to MSMEs, that’s not wrong and I’m happy with what the Managing Director of BRI (Sunarso) said that digital banking down to the bottom is really running at BRI. BRI takes care of small businesses that were previously handled by loan sharks,” said Jokowi.

BRI Microfinance Outlook 2024 itself is an annual event for PT. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk which aims to discuss the role of MSMEs as a source of inclusive economic growth. This activity is packaged with the concept of a seminar activity which consists of two discussion sessions and presents speakers from expert, professional and government circles.

President Jokowi also appreciated the holding of BRI Microfinance Outlook 2024. “This forum is important to understand the direction and strategy of MSMEs to be competitive and compete with other countries,” he added.

Apart from President Jokowi, present at the event were BUMN Minister Erick Thohir, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki, Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan and Deputy Minister of BUMN Kartika Wirjoatmodjo.

To respond to these challenges, BRI President Director Sunarso explained that banking, especially BRI, can act as an institution that empowers communities (in this case Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises/MSMEs) to be active by providing funding opportunities, especially for Ultra Micro business actors (UMi ) which are relatively unreachable by formal financial access, as an effort to strengthen economic and social resilience.

“BRI has taken several concrete actions, including the formation of Ultra Micro Holding, where BRI together with Pegadaian and PNM have provided integrated financial services and ensured that ultra micro customers can move up in class in one complete ecosystem in the concept of Empower, Integrate and Upgrade,” he added. Sunarso.

“Thank you, Mr President, for granting permission to form an ultra-micro holding. “The results of the holding, thank God, reached 44 million MSME credit customers, and 173 million deposit/savings customers,” said Sunarso.

Apart from that, BRI, as a state-owned bank, continues to show its commitment to encouraging financial inclusion in a sustainable and structured manner, namely through AgenBRILink. The role of BRILink Agent has also been proven to help people make transactions easier without having to go to a branch office or ATM. This creates economic value and social value simultaneously. BRILink agents are the company’s efforts to increase empowerment capabilities. This is inseparable from one of the big aspirations that the company wants to achieve by 2025, namely becoming a Champion of Financial Inclusion.