RM420.8 mln micro-credit financing chanelled under PENJANA as of April 2 - Tengku Zafrul

Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the number included applicants from the retail and services sectors.

He said that for SME soft loans funds, as of April 2, 2021, the total amount approved by local banks and accepted by SMEs was RM11.87 billion, benefitting 25,289 SMEs.

For the financing of the PENJANA tourism sector, as of April 2, there were 636 applications for this financing, and out of this total, 315 applications were approved with a total financing of RM62.9 million compared to 626 applications, out of which 308 applications were approved with a total financing of RM61.9 million, the previous week.

"The government is aware that the record (of applications for this fund) is not very encouraging at the moment, because the tourism industry has not fully recovered.

"With the implementation of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, it is hoped that the targeted herd immunity can be achieved as early as December 2021, thus becoming a catalyst for economic recovery, especially for the country's tourism industry," he said when presenting the 49th Implementation and Coordination Unit Between National Agencies (LAKSANA) report today.

On the Bumiputera Relief Financing (BRF), he said that as of April 2, the fund has been dispensed to 749 SMEs involving a total of RM226.8 million.

Tengku Zafrul added that the government has allocated assistance to support technical and digital consumption for SMEs and middle-tier companies (MTC), and as of April 2, RM59.3 million has been channelled to 13,857 businesses in the form of grants and loans for subscription to digitalisation services.