Businesses should leverage on SME financing from Bank Negara, says Guan Eng

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PUTRAJAYA: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are urged to make use of the financing available from Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) Funds for Small and Medium Enterprises.

Finance Minster Lim Guan Eng said there were still RM3.9 billion of funding available and SMEs should take the opportunity to harness the financing available to grow their businesses.

Lim Guan Eng

Responding to concerns from SMEs on the difficulties in obtaining financing, he said that businesses could directly contact BNM as the central bank was always prepared to assist SMEs in the event they face issues such as a lack of collateral.

“BNM has a special assistant governor in charge of SME financing and there should be no reason for SMEs to face difficulties in obtaining loans.

“SMEs, which are facing problems with banks, can call BNM to lodge a complaint, and we really intend to help these businesses as we want the available financing to go to them,” Lim said at a press conference here yesterday.

Meanwhile, BNM Assistant Governor Abu Hassan Alshari Yahaya said of the RM3.9 billion in available financing, RM3.3 billion was earmarked for SMEs in all sectors of the economy, followed by the Bumiputera Entrepreneur Project Fund-i (RM191.4 million), Premier Agriculture Sector (RM97.9 million) and micro businesses (RM6.9 million).

“We try to ensure that businesses who are competitive will obtain their loans,” he said.

Abu Hassan said SMEs who would like to obtain loans or lodge complaints could email to [email protected].

“We will always look at the issues faced by SMEs in detail, especially when it came to business operations and competition,” he added. — Bernama