Jakarta, Sept 14 (ANTARA) - The government's smallholder's business credit scheme (KUR) is basically helpful for financing the informal business sector but to cover the country's over 42 million small-scale businesses and cooperatives, the scheme which this year is expected to help 1.5 million recipients with funds totaling Rp15 trillion is almost meaningless.
"About 99.99 percent of the country's 42.45 million cooperatives, small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) run their business on capital they obtained from informal sources at high cost," Bambang Soesatyo, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce (Kadin)'s Fiscal and Monetary Committee said.
He said that the capital of as many as 41.8 million of the country's small enterprises comes from the informal money market such as money-lenders who charge interest rates averaging as high as 20 percent," he said.
The idea to provide financial assistance to micro-economic businesses came up in the wake of the government's plan to raise fuel oil prices. So, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched it in November 2007 or about six months before the government raised fuel oil prices on May 23, 2008.
The scheme was expected to push banks to provide the assistance for SMEs and cooperatives based on a memorandum of understanding signed by the relevant ministers on October 2007.
In order to guarantee the credits, the government assigned PT Askrindo as the guarantor, while credits were to be provided by six government banks, namely Bank Bukopin, Bank Mandiri, Bank BTN, Bank BNI, BANK BRI and Bank Syariah Mandiri.
Since its launch in November, the amount of KUR funds extended to small- and medium-scale businessmen in the country had up to June this year reached Rp8 trillion. A total of around 900,000 small- and medium-scale businessmen had received the assistance.
Of the extended credits, Bank BRI handed Rp4.176 trillion to 625,083 recipients and Bank Mandiri Rp993.24 billion to 33,110 debtors. Bank BNI had also handed over Rp911,871 billion in KUR to 7,413 debtors, Bukopin Bank Rp452.623 billion to 2,384 recipients, Bank Syariah Mandiri Rp258,485 billion to 4,400 debtors and BTN bank Rp81.05 billion to 470 debtors.
In this case, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked for an increase in the distribution of the KUR credits to boost national economic growth.
"We will continue developing the KUR program which is currently worth Rp8 trillion and hopefully it will reach Rp15 trillion. The state has pledged another Rp1.4 trillion," the president said when opening an Indonesian Cultural Production Week last June.
The same hope was also expressed by State Minister for Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Suryadharma Ali. The government is determined to continue its scheme the recipients of which had reached at least 700,000 totaling Rp8 trillion.
"In principle, the government will continue and maintain the KUR program," he said.
The Office of the State Minister for Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises has stand-by funds of Rp439 billion prepared for capital assistance for small- and medium-scale businesses.
The minister said for 2008 his office had set a target of 700,000 KUR borrowers in a year. But some said that the number of debtors could just reach two million due to high interest in the program.
Initially, the average credit provision per customer was about Rp300 million to Rp500 million but eventually, the minister's office revised it to include recipients of micro-scale businesses where the credits could be provided for recipients borrowing less than Rp10 million.
However, the implementation of this scheme also faced constraints as it was reported that some bankers had asked for collateral before providing the credits. Complaints about this in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggra (NTB), is a case in point.
M. Irwan Prasetya, chairman of the Indonesian Street Vendors and Hawkers Association (APKLI) for NTB said a number of banks had asked collateral if vendors wanted to obtain the KUR facility. He lodged the complaint during a dialog with Trade Minister Marie Elka Pangestu in Mataram on Saturday.
The minister promised she would ask about the collateral problem with the relevant officials in Jakarta. "There should be no collateral condition for micro-businesses to obtain the KUR credits," she said.
In the meantime, Bambang Soesatyo of Kadin said the fact that in practice the government's policy to help cooperatives and SMEs with easy credits was not at all working as expected was caused by a number of factors.
"One of these factors is that banks through which the government credits are channeled often apply their own policies to the intended recipients such as requiring the SMEs to meet additional conditions based on the so-called 'bankability' principle," he said.
Soesatyo said Kadin was suggesting that government instruments like Small-holder's Business Credits (KURs) be made to work by involving local Micro Financing Institutes (LKMs) which were able to reach cooperatives and SMEs that had no access to bank credit facilities.
"LKMs are also expected to be able to eliminate the role of money lenders who have become a threat to cooperatives and SMEs," he said.
(T.A014/A/HAJM/A/S012) 14-09-2008 01:00:01
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