Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, has said he believes the creative economy could become a driving force of the national development through a synergy among MSMEs so they could give larger contribution to GDP particularly from tax payments.
"MSME players are the main pillars of the nation's economic growth as they contribute as much as 60 percent to the national economy, and the taxation sector contributes about 85 percent to economic financing in Indonesia," Uno said.
"Therefore, I believe that if there is synergy between MSMEs and taxation, the creative economy sector can become a locomotive for national development," he said at a webinar entitled 'Socialization of Tax and MSMEs Tax Fair (PRPN) 2021' on Wednesday.
Based on data on macro tourism and creative economy indicators, the creative economy sector's contribution to the national economy increased from Rp526 trillion in 2010 to Rp989 trillion in 2017, he said.
Meanwhile, in 2019, the creative economy sector contributed Rp1,105 trillion to Indonesia's gross domestic product (GDP). This put Indonesia in third place, after the United States and South Korea in terms of its creative economy, the minister said.
Though the contribution of the creative economy to the GDP, at current prices, in 2020 fell by 2.39 percent, sub-sectors such as television, radio, applications, and game developers rose, he noted.
"This is an opportunity to present MSMEs products with digital transformation," he pointed out.
Regarding tax, Minister Uno urged MSME players should change their perspective on paying tax.
"Don't be afraid to be taxable. We have already crashed the old paradigm that says tax is scary. This tax will be our good companion in building the nation. So, we must learn how we can make a real contribution," he remarked.
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Uno explained that the reallocation of the government's 2020 budget for helping MSMEs tackle the impact of COVID-19 amounted to Rp123.46 trillion.
MSME players got a large share because the government realized how important and strategic MSMEs were as the locomotive of the national economy, he said. In addition, one of the national economic recovery programs provided to MSMEs was tax relief and other government incentive assistance, he added.
"We need to check and correctly analyze how effective and impactful the tax relief has been for MSMEs, what we need to continue, what we need to improve, or what we need to follow up on. Therefore, let's collaborate on taxation and MSMEs," he said.
"I believe that if there are obstacles that we face regarding financing, production space, liquidity, and health protocols, we can overcome them. The key is that MSMEs should be able to innovate, adapt, and collaborate," he added.
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