The South Kalimantan Provincial Government is actively promoting and facilitating seven local leading products from the agriculture and small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) sectors with significant export potential. "We want the community to be able to process products or raw materials into finished goods with high value for export," said the Acting Head of the Department of Trade (Disdag) of South Kalimantan, Nurul Fajar Desira, in Banjarmasin on Wednesday (8/11/2023). The seven leading export products include coffee, mangrove crabs, arowana fish, swallow nests, agarwood, shrimp, captured fish, and eels. Although the quantity is still limited, these products have export potential that needs to be increased in production. "The government wants our region not to rely solely on one sector such as mining. There are still many other sectors with potential, so there needs to be a concrete program to realize these efforts," he said.
However, these seven products need to be developed through various training programs provided to entrepreneurs, with the hope of improving the quality of export products from South Kalimantan. He explained that the economy in South Kalimantan is currently dominated by the mining sector, contributing about 30% to the total regional gross product (PTRB). This is one of the challenges that will take quite some time to transform from the mining sector to other sectors. Fajar stated that the local government is making various efforts to introduce other leading products to be developed before export. To achieve globally competitive exports, he emphasized the need for innovation and new breakthroughs in developing products. The key is to enhance the quality of human resources to efficiently manage local products from South Kalimantan. He called for cooperation from all parties, from the private sector to the general public, to support and facilitate entrepreneurs in processing raw materials into finished goods or downstream products with quality ready for export. "The development of export potential is to achieve sustainable regional economic growth," said Fajar.
