MICRO FINANCE - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and several other ministers on Monday launched a ultra-micro credits program in nine different regions for businesspeople with no access to existing financial institutions.
The launch of the program, through teleconference, was held in several places including Bogor by Sri Mulyani, Jakarta by Social Minister Kofifal Indar Parawansa and East Java by Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister AA Gede Mgurah Puspayoga.
The recipients of the credits, who are not required to have collateral, come from many sectors, including fisheries, agriculture and trade.
Among the government institutions involved in the program include the Finance Ministry, the Social Ministry, the Information and Communication Ministry, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry and the Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry.
The Finance Ministry’s investment center records that 61 million micro-businesspeople have no access to financing facilities as the existing government microcredit program (KUR) can only distribute funds to 17 million people.
Each beneficiary of the credit program will receive between Rp 1 million (US$75) and Rp 5 million, according to the investment center as reported by tempo.co.
To distribute the credits, the government will cooperate with three state-owned micro financing institutions — state-owned pawnshops, Permodalan National Mandani and Bahana Artha Venture. The three institutions will cooperate with cooperatives to distribute the credits to the people.
As a pilot project, the government has allocated Rp 1.5 trillion to be distributed to 19 villages across the country, which is expected to involve 300,000 micro-businesspeople. (bbn)
