inp.polri.go.id - Jakarta. Minister of Cooperatives Budi Arie Setiadi stated that the people expect the Merah Putih Village Cooperative program to become a tool for economic struggle.

"Merah Putih Village Cooperative is the people's hope, a tool for their economic struggle to improve public welfare and village progress throughout Indonesia," he said on Saturday (7/12/2025).

The Cooperative Minister hopes that the cooperative will not be just a random program, but will have an impact in addressing various social problems in Indonesia.

Two challenges highlighted are rural poverty and the still-high stunting rate. With the existence of village cooperatives, it is hoped that poverty and stunting rates can decrease, thereby contributing to national economic growth and equality.

"The poverty rate is still high in villages, and the economic gap between villages and cities is very large. Therefore, we want to realize how cooperatives can contribute to national economic growth," said the Cooperative Minister.

By 2024, there were 131,617 active cooperatives with nearly 30 million members. Their business volume reached IDR 214 trillion, contributing nearly 1 percent to the national GDP.

Now, approximately 80,500 villages and sub-districts have established Merah Putih Village Cooperatives through special village deliberations. Of this number, more than 77,000 have legal entities issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Law. Of these thousands of cooperatives, 103 are being used as pilot projects.

These tens of thousands of village cooperatives will operate simultaneously following their launch by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on July 19, 2025, and it is targeted that all of them will be operational and serving all the needs of the village/village community by October 2025.

(ad/ndt/pr/rs)