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PETALING JAYA: One million micro SMEs (small and medium enterprises) will each start receiving RM500 in financial assistance under the Pemerkasa Plus stimulus package, says Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz.

The Finance Minister said payments to these MSMEs would start immediately.

“This additional financial assistance of RM500, which was announced under Pemerkasa Plus, will be paid from today onwards in stages.

“These payments (add up) to nearly RM500mil that will be credited directly to registered bank accounts in the Prihatin Special Grant (GKP) 3.0 system,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He added that the government was committed to helping businesses, especially MSMEs, facing cashflow troubles.

GKP 3.0 had allocated RM1.5bil or RM1,500 per eligible MSME.

Tengku Zafrul said RM1,000 was handed out to these MSMEs in June and the remaining RM500 will be credited from July 12.

“Under the National People’s Well-Being and Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih) announced on June 28, the GKP 4.0 of RM500 each will be channelled to existing GKP recipients and new recipients in November and September.

“For those MSMEs that have not received any GKP financial assistance, the registration will be opened from July 15-31.

“Besides GKP, there are many more initiatives for MSMEs that can be used for the long-term planning of business recovery.“These include easy loan schemes amounting RM2.9bil through Bank Simpanan Nasional, Agrobank, Mara, SME Corp, Yapeim (the Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Foundation) and Tekun (the National Entrepreneur Group Economic Fund),” he added.

Tengku Zafrul said there were also allocations totalling RM8.6bil for easy loans under Bank Negara Malaysia.

“This includes the additional fund of RM2bil for Pemerkasa Plus and RM2bil more for Pemulih packages,” he said.

Since the beginning of the pandemic last year, the government has announced various economic packages to help businesses to recover, especially SMEs and MSMEs, which form the majority of the businesses in Malaysia.

Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2021/07/13/1-million-micro-smes-get-aid