Shopee Collaborates with Mayor Gibran to Prepare MSMEs in Surakarta

Shopee Indonesia signed a collaboration with the Surakarta City Government represented by Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka in preparing the Solo Go Export UMKM.

Currently, around 40 thousand MSME players in Surakarta have registered with Shopee, with 5 thousand of them having active export stores.

This industrial collaboration with the Surakarta city government is carried out in the form of mentoring or education from upstream to downstream on five main focuses, namely sustainable education, distribution of funding, online marketing, payment and logistics systems, and exports.

“This collaboration is a form of Shopee’s support in developing Indonesian MSMEs. We provide education and assistance that can hone the competence and knowledge of MSMEs to realize exports, “said the Director of Shopee Indonesia, Handhika Jahja, through a press release, quoted on Sunday (25/4).

He added, through this collaboration, Shopee is targeting a total of 10,000 new exporters from Surakarta UMKM players by the end of 2021, as well as making Surakarta City a blueprint or pilot city for the first UMKM export education.

Shopee assessed that the Surakarta UMKM actors had great potential. This means that there is room for growth for local traders who produce their own businesses to increase production capacity and quality to export.

Launched a Series of Education and Training Programs for MSMEs

In addition to the expansion of the reach provided by online platforms such as Shopee, this series of educational and training programs can also help MSME players learn to ensure that all orders are fulfilled quickly and while maintaining the quality of their products.

Handhika said Shopee would also build a physical training ground for MSMEs, in addition to the Shopee Campus Program which has been routinely carried out in Surakarta with hundreds of participating sellers.

“We hope that Shopee’s collaboration with the Surakarta City Government can support the sustainability of the MSME business with Shopee and reach a wider market,” he said.

Mayor of Surakarta Gibran Rakabuming Raka welcomed this collaboration which, according to him, would provide a forum for MSME players in Indonesia to be able to continue to develop, especially in exporting products.

“With the increasing number of access and education provided for MSMEs to sell online, even to export their products, it can make them optimistic about running their business, especially during this pandemic,” said Gibran.

This collaboration with the Surakarta City Government is in line with other strategic steps taken by Shopee to improve the quality of Indonesian MSME players.

Shopee’s export program has succeeded in increasing daily transactions on its platform by up to sixfold between June 2020 and January 2021.

In February 2021, 1.5 million products from local traders were successfully exported to Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The “From Local to Global” Shopee Kreasi Nusantara Export Program will also continue to be developed by adding new export ranges.

Not only in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand and Vietnam, which have been running since March, but also in South America, namely Brazil.

Collaborating with Various Parties to Support MSMEs

In supporting the government’s program to advance MSMEs, Shopee is also collaborating with export schools to produce 500,000 new exporters by 2030.

This is also supported by the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises, and has been started since early March 2021.

The collaboration between Shopee and the Surakarta City Government begins with a series of UMKM Solo Go Export events which will be held on April 23-24, 2021.

At this event, Shopee held a variety of talk shows for MSME players in Surakarta with a choice of topics that accommodate various business scales with curricula that have been curated according to different needs.

To make it easier for MSME players to get relevant information, Shopee will be presented by Natasha Wilona as the owner of Marshwillow who has successfully exported through Shopee.