Indonesia has over 18 million micro-business

Manado, North Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has 18,933,701 micro businesses accounting for 83.2 percent of the total number of enterprises which was recorded at 27,737,314, an economic census conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) in 2006 showed.

The number of small-scale businesses was 3,594,254 or 15.8 percent, medium-scale businesses 152,789 or 0.7 percent, large businesses 44,038 or 0.2 percent and unclassified businesses 2,532 or 0.1 percent, Nursinah Amal Urai, a BPS director, told a seminar on the economic census 2006 here Friday.

The census also showed 10,297,908 or 46.3 percent of the total number of enterprises were engaged in wholesale and retail trading, 3,220,156 or 14.2 percent in processing industries, 3,015,208 or 13.3 percent in transportation and warehouse services and 2,702,574 or 13.3 percent in the communication sector.

Quoting the data, Nursinah said the business sector in Java accounted for 60.13 percent of national economic activities.

Three provinces which made the largest contributions to the national economy were Jakarta (17.48 percent), East Java (15.18 percent) and West Java (14.55 percent).

Other provinces whose contribution to the national economy reached more than 1 percent were Central Java (8.47 percent), Banten (3.44 percent) and Yogyakarta (1 percent).

The significant contribution from provinces in Java to the national economy could not be separated from the processing industries whose percentage stood at 80.

The data also showed the contribution of Java to the national economy had continued to grow in the past five years, Nursinah said.

Java`s contribution to the national economy was recorded at an average of 59.32 percent in 2000-2005 and it increased to 60.13 percent in late 2005.