JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government is planning a big push to digitalize its state-owned enterprises, hoping to make them more efficient and to give a lift to startups by offering them venture capital through such SOEs and banks.
There are more than 100 state-owned companies in Indonesia and they wield massive influence in nearly all the country's main industries, including natural resources, chemicals, construction, transportation, plantations and finance. But that influence has allowed them to maintain many inefficient practices, something that Erick Thohir, the country's minister for state-owned enterprises, has been keen to rectify since taking the post last October.
