KUALA LUMPUR: The Entrepreneur Development Ministry has instructed Bank Rakyat to raise the financing allocations for cooperatives and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to 30% over the next few years from the current 10%.
Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof said Bank Rakyat, an agency under the ministry, should focus more on assisting cooperatives and SMEs.
“To date, 90% of the financing by Bank Rakyat is in the form of personal loans, housing loans and vehicle loans,” he said during Ministers’ Question Time at the Dewan Rakyat, here today.
He was replying to Rubiah Wang (BN-Kota Samarahan) who had wanted to know the government’s efforts to encourage the public’s participation in cooperatives.
Mohd Redzuan said the ministry launched the National Entrepreneurship Framework (NEF) in November 2018, which outlines the direction for cooperatives under the third strategic thrust of empowering entrepreneurship in the B40 group.
“The activities of cooperatives which contribute the most to revenue and gross domestic product are banking and credit,” he said.
Statistics show that in 2017, a total of 589 financial services cooperatives contributed revenue of RM33.45 billion, he added.
In 2018, there were 14,245 registered cooperatives in Malaysia with 6.5 million members, share capital of RM14.78 billion and assets worth RM140.39 billion. — Bernama
