Jakarta. Indonesia officially launches its first Esports Association on Saturday to nurture professional gamers and introduce regulations for a potential domestic league. 

The newly-established board of executives is chaired by National Intelligence Agency head Budi Gunawan, who immediately expressed his goal to set up a world-class training center.

“We have a lot of works to do, one of them is to build an esports training center conforming to the international standard,” Budi said after the inauguration of the board of executives in Jakarta.

The governing body will soon meet to draft esports regulations and guidelines that will help local players and teams compete at the international level, he said.

The 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta saw the inaugural esports competition. A year later, esports became a medal event at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Manila, where Indonesian players managed to bring home two silver medals.

Budi said esports will continue to become a sport discipline in the Asian Games and be introduced in the 2024 Olympics.

Politician

Among the new esports executives was Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) politician Sandiaga Uno, a running mate for presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto in last year’s election.

Sandiaga was installed as deputy chairman of the advisory board.

“Esports has huge potential in this country, where there are 60 million active gamers. The value of esports industry has surpassed $1 billion and will continue to grow,” Sandiaga said.

He said the immediate task of the Indonesian esports governing body is to set up regulations as the basis for a domestic league.