News / Blog

In late 2019, there has been a rumor about the establishment of the Ministry of Digital in Indonesia. The President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, stated that he wishes to establish the Ministry of Digital and Creative Economy (Ministry of Digital). At that time, the Creative Economy Agency of Indonesia (BEKRAF) will be upgraded to become the Ministry of Digital and Creative Economy. Although his wish is not yet to complete until now, the existence of the so-called ministry seems to be quite handy in the current pandemic situation.

Why does Indonesia Need the Ministry of Digital?

Why does Indonesia need the Ministry of Digital? There are several strong reasons to legalize the existence of the Ministry of Digital. It is certainly has a strong relationship with the digital transformation plan in Indonesia. Indonesia together with the ASEAN countries has tailored cooperation with Japan to carry out digital transformation.

Digital transformation is believed to be the key success factor in the attempt to recover the economical conditions that have weakened due to the COVID19 pandemic. Thus, a country will need a special organizational institution to escort the program in achieving the goals.

In addition to that, we can’t deny that internet users in Indonesia keep on increasing from time to time. Before the pandemic, there are hundreds of millions of internet users in Indonesia. But this number is believed to be multiplied during the COVID19 pandemic as the impact of the large scale social restriction (PSBB).

The increasing number of internet users accompanied by the increase of fraud on the internet. If this problem does not get attention seriously, then it will bring harm to the internet community in Indonesia. Kids are vulnerable to porn and harmful sites even worse, the cybercrime.

Therefore, the Ministry of Digital is believed to be the right party to handle all of those tasks. The Ministry of Digital will play roles as the one to take preventive measures. But, does this all tasks can be covered by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology?

Right now, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is claimed to be overwork to handle a lot of works, such as manage the internet governance, blocking the illegal sites, and supporting the startups. All those heavy workloads make the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology cannot focus on each field they manage.

The Duty of the Ministry of Digital

Then, what is the main duty of the Ministry of Digital if it were to be created one day? Later, the Ministry of Digital will take a role to create regulations that ease every startup to open its operations in Indonesia. As quoted from Liputan6.com, right now fintech must go through 15 institutions to get permission. In the future, they will only have to handling the permission in one ministry.

Besides that, it is possible to obtain permission quickly at a low cost. Later, this ministry can focus its works on helping startups’ development in Indonesia. The government has prepared incentives to develop startups. These incentives distributions can be managed intensively with a special institution.

Streamlining the permitting process will invite more startups to grow later and eventually give a positive impact on the economic development in Indonesia. Rumor has it that Indonesia will take a big shot from digital business in later years. Right now, Thailand, Tiongkok, and France has established the Ministry of Digital, we shall wait for Indonesia to have the same ministry, huh?