Deputy Minister of Cooperatives fxFerry Juliantono said that many of the Village Unit Cooperatives (KUD) that were once successful have collapsed because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervened in Indonesian policies.
In fact, according to Ferry, KUD once played an important role in making Indonesia independent in the procurement and production of rice (rice self-sufficiency).
"Many KUDs then became inactive because in 1998 the IMF forced the Indonesian government to withdraw the state's role in regulating food and agriculture, which caused the KUDs to die," said Ferry in Bandung, Saturday evening.
Finally, because of this, Ferry continued, many cooperatives (KUD) which were previously productive cooperatives have become cooperatives whose activities are only savings and loans.
But on the other hand, according to Ferry, (official) savings and loan cooperatives are positive and quite needed, especially in conditions like these, where many loan sharks or mobile banks are appearing.
"Their role is great. The results of the national socio-economic survey, the community makes savings and loan cooperatives the main choice after banks. So their role is also very large, this activity in village cooperatives is to ensure that the community does not depend on online loans, then loan sharks, then bank practices with very high interest rates," he said.
However, Ferry said that the government, which plans to form the Red and White Cooperative in the near future, will encourage and target the cooperative to not only become a savings and loan cooperative, but also a productive cooperative.
"Later, the production results, such as food harvests, horticulture, plantations, livestock, fisheries, will be managed by cooperatives," he said.
Because, he continued, the government wants cooperatives to no longer only manage small businesses, but to be allowed to enter the mining sector, palm oil plantations and even have factories.
"We used to have a textile industry, a textile factory, called a batik cooperative association, we want to revive it now.