There are many ways to advance micro to medium businesses in Indonesia. Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir issued steps to advance this business.

Erick said synergies between various parties must be harmonized to provide easy access to financing for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The parties referred to by Erick include the Ministry of BUMN, Ministry of Finance, Financial Services Authority (OJK), Bank Indonesia (BI), and the Association of State Banks (Himbara).

"The roles of the policies of the Ministry of Finance, OJK, BI together with Himbara and the Ministry of BUMN must be harmonized so that there is easy access, especially when the President (Joko Widodo) spoke about collateral and prospects," said Erick when met after the opening of the 2023 Brilianpreneur MSME EXPO(RT) in Jakarta, Thursday.

Deputy Minister of BUMN Kartika Wirjoatmodjo, who was also present on that occasion, said that his party was currently discussing guarantee provisions with the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs.

"The term collateral, we can reduce the collateral later. If the guarantee becomes stronger, we will propose that the guarantee in the future be wider and bigger in size," said Kartika.

In this way, more customers will be able to enter the People's Business Credit (KUR) and ultramicro systems.

It is known that President Joko Widodo has asked that financing for MSMEs continue to be made easier so that MSMEs can move up in class. "What I always encourage is that everything related to MSME financing must be made easier, because if we look at the distribution of bank credit to MSMEs, it is only 21 percent of total credit," said Jokowi.

Jokowi said that the largest distribution of MSME credit by state-owned banks was carried out by Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), namely 83 percent of the total credit distribution of all state-owned banks to MSMEs.

However, he continued, national banking credit to MSMEs only amounted to 21 percent of total credit. This figure is still far from China and Japan's 65 percent, and India's 50 percent.

Jokowi also asked the Ministry of BUMN together with the relevant authorities to improve regulations to make it easier for MSMEs to obtain credit or financing.