Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia is stepping up the transformation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) to mitigate the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, an official has said.

SOEs Minister Erick Thohir said on September 13 that the current transformation is not part of restructuring the enterprises or shrinking their number from 108 to 41, the ANTARA news agency reported.

Highlighting the four key areas of SOE transformation, he noted: “Firstly, we will ensure that the SOE as a corporation can make a consistent and large contribution to the state.”

SOEs already have a track record of contributing greatly to the state over the last 10 years in the form of taxes and dividends. With the current state of this pandemic, the contribution of SOEs to the state must not decrease.

“One way to overcome this is by ensuring supply chains and ecosystems to make efficiency so that SOEs financials are still getting healthier," Thohir said.

Secondly, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people's lives have changed and digitalisation has also changed. Thus, SOEs must prepare to compete in a very open market and have a very strong business model such as by synergizing ultra micro SOEs and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) so as to have the strength to balance the economy, he went on.

Thirdly, how the SOE transformation actually impacts the community needs to be traced, the minister said, noting that easy access to funding should be ensured, especially in the ultra micro sector.

Fourthly, it is important that internally, SOEs are sustainable in every aspect, so that the transformation carried out by the previous leadership can be followed by the next leaders, the official added./.
VNA