Strategy for Acceleration of Regional Development to Reduce Unemployment and Proverty in the District of Timor Tengah Selatan-NTT

Small and Medium Enterprises (UKM) help the community and government in providing employment, this will have a good effect in reducing the unemployment rate in Indonesia. Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) can help stabilize the Indonesian economy and assist the government in reducing unemployment, poverty, and become businesses for the income of the lower-level people. The development of MSMEs is very dependent on their competitiveness. MSMEs with high competitiveness will develop rapidly. The development of MSMEs is indeed faced with various obstacles, therefore the determination of a strategy that is suitable for business development is needed. The competition in the global era is very much determined by the advantages of the products produced. For the development of these advantages, it is necessary to develop a superior product concept. This process is carried out by identifying superior products, especially those from the small and medium enterprise sector, as a process of developing local resources and optimizing regional economic potential. The purpose of this study: 1) To identify the superior products of MSMEs in Timor Tengah Selatan Regency (TTS) to accelerate regional development and reduce unemployment and poverty. 2) To find strategies for developing MSMEs in TTS Regency in order to accelerate regional development and reduce unemployment and poverty. The research method uses a competitive profile matrix approach: this approach is aimed at assessing superior products Data Analysis Technique uses Functional Analysis, Functional analysis in this study focuses on identifying superior products, considering that MSME products have special characteristics compared to companies, EFE Analysis (External Factor Evaluation) This analysis is intended to determine how much opportunities and threats are faced by MSMEs, IFE (Internal Factor Evaluation) analysis: this analysis is intended to determine how much strengths and weaknesses MSMEs are, SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, And Threats): To determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats faced by MSMEs, the sample in this study amounted to 25 MSMEs. Based on the identification of the superior products of MSMEs in TTS Regency, the leading SME sector to be developed is the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector with the magnitude of the LQ index value is 4.32. Furthermore, the SME development strategy is the ST strategy, which is a strategy to use strength to overcome threats. With this strategy, SMEs should maintain product brand image in the eyes of consumers by focusing on quality, maintaining product diversification, maintaining cooperation with raw material suppliers and establishing good relationships with local raw material suppliers, then SMEs should innovate products, pay attention to the welfare of workers, increase relations or cooperation with external parties such as banks and companies outside TTS and the government gives more attention to SMEs. Keywords—strategy, regional development acceleration, unemployment, poverty