Jakarta. Huawei Indonesia, the local arm of the Chinese technology giant, has pledged its support for the Nahdliyin Entrepreneurs’ Community, or HPN, a business group part of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, or NU, to accelerate the digital transformation among the Sharia-based business ness, the company said in a recent statement. 

Jacky Chen, Huawei's Indonesia's chief executive officer, announced the support at HPN Digital Business Forum held in Bali from March 26-28. Vice President Maruf Amin and Said Aqil Siraj, Nahdlatul Ulama's chairman, also attended the forum. 

Under the plan, Huawei Indonesia would help build the technology infrastructures and nurturing digital technology talent among the Sharia-compliant micro-, small-small, and medium-sized businesses in line with the government's initiatives to leverage the digital and Sharia economy potential for Indonesia's economic recovery. 

"Innovations in utilizing digital technology have actually been going on for some time, being accelerated globally due to the pandemic," Vice President Maruf said in his remark on Friday. 

"Now, we are all part of a global digital community. I invite all parties to develop an incubation center to help aspiring entrepreneurs at all levels in many regions," Ma'ruf said. 

He said the government had a strong commitment to developing the Sharia-compliant economy, focusing on pushing the MSMEs to become part of the global value chain, particularly for the halal goods industry. Apart from that, the government would also seek to develop the Islamic financial industry and Islamic social funds, Ma'ruf said. 

Maruf said HPN had a unique position to spearhead the initiative and urge the group to cooperate with various stakeholders, both local governments, industry, and technology providers, including Huawei.

Huawei's Jacky said the company remains committed to Indonesia and is eager to support the government's and HPN's initiatives. 

"For over 20 years in Indonesia, Huawei has committed to becoming part of the nation’s journey to transform into a developed country and global digital economy power by 2045,” Jacky said.

“Together with telecommunications companies with Indonesia, we continue to democratize broadband networks even in outermost areas so that the benefits of digital technology can be enjoyed equally," he said. 

"We also develop advanced technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data for both direct and industrial use for the sake of Indonesia’s digital ecosystem, including MSMEs and Nahdliyin entrepreneurs,” Jacky said. 

He said Huawei would make available the Huawei Asean (Indonesia) Academy, a training facility the company claimed to be its most complete and sophisticated in the Asia Pacific, for training the HPN entrepreneurs. 

The company hoped the program would contribute towards the government’s goal to create 9 million digital talents by 2025.

“To support the government’s expectations regarding the availability of capable digital talents by 2025, Huawei targets to develop at least 100,000 digital talents within five years through our collaborative programs with various stakeholders,” Jacky said. 

NU's  Said Aqil welcomed Huawei's support and hoped it would continue building momentum among Sharia entrepreneurs and MSMEs to expand in the digital marketplace. 

“Our entrepreneurs need to catch up through digitizing their businesses and adapting to change. They must be part of the digital economy and even play a bigger role for the welfare of the people," Said Aqil said.