VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. The government disbursed Rp6.2 trillion Productive Aid for Micro Enterprises (BPUM) in the year ended March 31 to drive national economic growth in the 2021 first-quarter, Cooperative, Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises Minister Teten Masduki stated.

"As of March 31, we have disbursed the BPUM 2021 to 5.2 million micro enterprises, with the aid totaling Rp6.29 trillion," Masduki stated during a work meeting with Commission VI of the House of Representatives on the evaluation of BPUM here on Thursday.

The government is targeted to disburse the productive aid to 9.8 million micro enterprises in 2021 wherein each beneficiary will receive Rp1.2 million.

The number of BPUM beneficiaries was lower as compared to 2020 that reached 12 million, with each of them receiving Rp2.4 million.

The minister attributed the decrease in the number of aid beneficiaries to insufficient government funding.

However, the ministry would seek to expand the aid beneficiaries and increase the number by three million.

"In fact, 9.8 million (beneficiaries) is still far from sufficient. The number of applicants is much higher, so we need the Finance Ministry’s help to increase (the number of aid beneficiaries) to 12 million," he noted.

The disbursement of productive aid is expected to boost the country's economic recovery. The program was designed by the ministry and the COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery Committee.

The BPUM will only be distributed to non-bankable micro-scale enterprises. The SMEs that already received bank loans will receive the assistance through credit restructurization, interest rate subsidy, and zero-percent interest rate for micro-loans below Rp10 million until December 2020. (Antaranews)