Indonesia’s support for entrepreneurship is not up to scratch. Here’s how the government can get serious

Everyone says Indonesia is the sleeping tech giant of Southeast Asia – the largest market, one which can’t be ignored. More than 95 percent of Indonesia’s businesses are startups or small and medium-sized companies. Nevertheless, startups are given very little support by the government, according to local tech business advisory firm Redwing Asia.

Last week, Indonesia’s tech minister, Rudiantara, claimed he would attempt to raise US$1 billion from locals conglomerates to invest in Indonesia’s IT startups. This is all something we hope will come true. But that amount of money is unprecedented in the local tech scene, and the government also has an ambitious infrastructure push on its plate this year, one which also needs a crazy amount of capital from the private sector. In the bigger-fish-to-fry sense, it’s certainly possible that tech startups will end up taking a back seat over the course of this year.

Regardless of whether Rudiantara is just wishfully thinking aloud, the minister’s statement poses some interesting questions for the Indonesian government. For example: in a nation with 50 million entrepreneurs, why doesn’t the administration do more to bolster the future of startups? Moreover, how can it set realistic goals and make good on its promises to local entrepreneurs? Essentially, how can it talk less and do more?

Jakarta should strive to become the mutated big brother of Singapore

Singapore’s economy ranks number one in the world for its ease of doing business, says the World Bank. A little more than a decade ago, this was not the case. At the turn of the millenium, the country’s Ministry of Trade and Industry decided that Singapore needed to transform itself into a nation of entrepreneurs, one that was unafraid to take risks. Fast forward to today. The current government has a slew of initiatives which provide support and resources – financial and other – to local startups. There are so many, in fact, that it’s hard to keep up with them all.

Granted, Singapore is small, with a population of only 5.4 million. Global conglomerates routinely use the nation as a parking spot while they size up larger market opportunities in the region. This makes Singapore much easier to cultivate, especially in terms of investor attention. For these reasons, experts can also argue that it’s tough to compare Jakarta to Singapore when talking about government support for tech startups – “apples to oranges” so to speak.

See: Singapore government to pump $48M into six venture capital funds

That may be true. But there are still many lessons that Indonesia can harvest from Singapore, and then morph so as to apply them in Jakarta. Easier access to capital is one. The SPRING Singapore initiative shows how that might be done. It offers a convenient microloan program to startups by working with financial institutions. Like Singapore in the early part of the decade, Indonesia could also ease up on its immigration policy, which would allow talented workers from overseas to join the fray and provide local startups with greater know-how. This would get global investors more jazzed about the archipelago as well.

What about Indonesia’s other neighbors?

Malaysia’s got a decent sized population of around 30 million, which is still nowhere near Indonesia’s 250 million, but substantially larger than Singapore’s. While the country doesn’t suffer the same infrastructural woes as Indonesia, it does seem to be getting its act together for startup support. One example of this is the Malaysian government’s recent initiative to create a network of big data analytics labs, a project that is supposed to nurture local startups and build national expertise in big data.

Dr. Ivan Sandjaja, director of the University of Ciputra Entrepreneurship Center in Indonesia believes that countries like Malaysia are still way ahead of Indonesia in terms of the government fostering startups. He says: