Indonesia's going all out to enhance state-owned enterprises as Jokowi is confident of their vast potential

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 (Bernama): The Indonesian president harbours myriad hopes and expectations for state-owned enterprises and has striven to see them not only advance nationwide but also compete at the international level.

According to a statement, President Joko Widodo believes these corporations hold vast potential to dominate the essential sectors at the onset and also at the global level in later days.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) only need a professional helping hand and management to assist them to flourish. This is because regardless of how great a company is, once it falls into the wrong hands, its development would stagnate and it would end up dying.

Indonesia’s State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir spoke of three big dreams for SOEs, with one of them being SOEs' bigger contribution to the nation.

"Again, if it is not just my wishful thinking, it is how to enable SOEs to make bigger contribution to the country. That is number one,” Thohir wrote on his official Instagram account on Feb 20.

The second aspiration is that the number of SOEs would be smaller but larger in terms of their footprints while the third pertains to optimising the role of SOE services to the community.

State-owned enterprises were undergoing a massive, intense, and ongoing transformation. It has borne fruits as they achieved an income totalling 96 trillion rupiah until the first semester of 2021, and a net profit of 26 trillion rupiah up until June 2021.

In 2021, the minister said the restructuring programme among state-owned companies had been going well. It turned out that things became more efficient when they were slimmer.

Thohir's ministry had been cutting down on the number of companies which he deemed as too many and was instead focusing on the existing ones to incorporate more important things. Among the ones undergoing transformation, the association of state-owned banks showed some tangible results.

Deputy Head of Commission VI of the House of Representatives Martin Manurung seconded the notion that adjustments in State-Owned Enterprises were still ongoing.

Essentially, the commission and the ministry are on the same boat on some aspects in the quest to improve state-owned enterprises. These include restructuring, holdings, clusters and investments, among others.

The commission also agrees to some suggestions made by companies that received government capital for corporation acts. - Bernama