PUTRAJAYA: The Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (Medac) has allowed the borrowers of loans from three financial institutions under its ambit to defer repayments for six months, effective today, if they are affected by Covid-19.
Its minister, Datuk Seri Wan Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the moratorium initiative, which involves Bank Rakyat, SME Bank and the National Entrepreneur Group Economic Fund (Tekun Nasional), is taken to ease the burden of borrowers who are facing a cash-flow problem due to Covid-19.
“In addition, several measures announced by the government such as banning assemblies and gatherings, involving a large number of people, were found to be detrimental to the ministry’s plans, including those involving entrepreneurs and co-ops.
“We hope the moratorium can help the clients tide over their financial woes,“ he told a press conference after meeting the ministry’s senior management team, here today.
Present was his deputy, Datuk Mas Ermieyati Samsudin.
Bank Rakyat recently announced that its clients can apply for temporary deferment to repay their loans in the wake of Covid-19 to ensure business continuity, especially for entrepreneurs and co-ops.
Wan Junaidi said the deferment could assist borrowers who have to look for ways to maintain business continuity to enable them to repay their loans as soon as the moratorium period ended.
In another development, Wan Junaidi said he would strive to change public misconception that the cooperative movement is a small sector and not capable of expanding globally.
Citing Bank Rakyat for example, he said the co-op bank is now one of the 10 largest co-op banks in the world besides being one of the leading financial institutions in the country.
“How can we belittle the capacity of the co-op movement in Malaysia as we have over 14,000 co-ops with over 6.6 million members and generating a revenue of about RM40 billion a year,“ he said.
