Expert Staff to the Minister for Macroeconomics at the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises, Rully Nuryanto, invites batik business actors to enter the digital ecosystem and adjust market demand both in terms of production and marketing. "The COVID-19 pandemic also opens up opportunities for the economy to continue to grow in Indonesia. Batik industry players must be able to adapt and take advantage of developments in information and technology facilities," he said. According to him, currently 19.5 million micro, small and medium enterprises or 34 percent of the total number of MSMEs have entered the "electronic commerce" system.

This digital economy transaction, he said, is estimated to reach IDR 1,700 trillion by 2025, so that it becomes a great potential and opportunity for batik craftsmen and traders to increase production and sales turnover.

It is said, the batik industry is part of the textile and apparel industry which is continuously encouraged to transform both in terms of production and marketing.

Batik craft, he continued, has become one of the cultural identities of the Indonesian nation and has received recognition from UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage belonging to the world in the field of "Intangible Cultural Heritage".

Rully Nuryanto appreciates the implementation of the 2022 National Batik Week in Pekalongan City which can be used as an effort to increase public awareness, protect and develop Indonesian batik while increasing love for domestic products.

"Congratulations on holding this batik week event after two years of not being able to hold it. This shows that the Indonesian economy has gradually improved, along with the success of controlling COVID-19 where based on BPS 2022 data, Indonesia's economic growth in the second quarter was 5.44 percent year-on-year on year," he said.

He said this figure was higher than the economic growth in the first quarter of 2022 of 5.01 percent, while the export value as of July 2022 was Rp. 25.57 billion US dollars, an increase of 32 percent compared to the same month the previous year.

"We hope that through the 2022 National Batik Week activities, it will further strengthen two-way communication (engagement) between batik industry players, producers and consumers," he said.