PETALING JAYA: The Small and Medium Enterprises Association of Malaysia (Samenta) has called for a speedy disbursement of a RM2.5 billion additional allocation for Bank Negara Malaysia’s Fund for SMEs.
In a statement, Samenta expressed its appreciation to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and entrepreneur development and cooperatives minister Steven Sim for unveiling 10 major initiatives aimed at easing compliance and operational challenges for SMEs.
The package, valued at nearly RM80 billion, serves as a critical injection of liquidity and a buffer against the rising costs of compliance, said Samenta president William Ng.
“This package is a major leap towards making Malaysian businesses great again, and we look forward to the rapid execution of these initiatives,” said Ng.
Ng hoped the additional RM2.5 billion in financing as announced by Anwar would be disbursed quickly to ensure that SMEs, including the 50% who have never received financing before, could access these funds transparently and without bureaucratic hurdles.
“The criteria should be clear and transparent, so there is no room for the financial institutions distributing these funds to interpret them differently.
“There should also be no requirements for these funds to go only to SMEs with certain ratings, since different businesses have different needs and success factors,” he said.
To date, BNM has made available RM32.4 billion in concessional financing to support access to financing for SMEs through participating financial institutions, particularly viable micro and small enterprises that face financing constraints.
In a statement, BNM said the additional RM2.5 billion increases the total allocation under BNM’s Fund for SMEs to RM34.9 billion.
