Malaysian government urged to aid SMEs

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Malay Chamber of Commerce Malaysia (DPMM) Wednesday urged the Malaysian government to aid small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in any future economic stimulus package.

DPMM President Syed Ali Alattas said that 30 percent funding of the stimulus package should be allocated for SMEs.

In April this year, the Malaysian government had announced its second stimulus plan with an allocation of 5 billion ringgit (1.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the form of the Working Capital Guarantee Scheme.

The scheme was aimed at assisting SMEs to mitigate the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on the local industry, according to the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority.

Syed Ali said that the fixed allocation for SMEs could assist them to innovate and upgrade their businesses to obtain higher sale and income.

He also suggested that local banks should be more proactive and aggressive to facilitate SMEs to resolve loan problems.

He said that some SMEs failed to get banking loans due to incomplete account statement and bad rating given by CTOS, the leading credit information provider in Malaysia.

He added that DPMM has prepared proposal plans and reports regarding the SME issue, and the papers would be sent to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in the near future.