Addressing the facts: Ewon making remarks during question time at the Parliament Building. — Bernama
THERE are signs of improvements for entrepreneurs as the trend of businesses shutting down are slowly decreasing as of November last year, says Datuk Ewon Benedick.
The Entrepreneurship and Cooperative Development Minister told Dewan Rakyat that a survey conducted by his ministry between 2020 and 2022 found the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the increase in basic items had led to a small number of entrepreneurs having to shut down their business operations.
According to Ewon, the survey also revealed that 8.88% of businesses have shut down their operations in April 2020, followed by 3.16% in June 2021, 1.38% in February 2022 and 2.7% in November 2022.
“As part of the effort to assist affected entrepreneurs, the ministry, through its agencies, have implemented various initiatives to revive businesses by providing financial assistance, including financing schemes under Tekun Nasional and the Ikhtiar financing scheme under Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM),” he said in reply to a question from Roslan Hashim (PN-Kulim Bandar Baharu) during the Minister’s question time.
Roslan had asked the ministry to state the number of entrepreneurs who closed their businesses due to the current economic downturn and the efforts made to help them. Ewon said that financing scheme agencies under the ministry had assisted business owners while the application process had been reduced.
He also noted that his ministry and all of its agencies collaborated with the Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK) for the implementation of a second chance intervention programme to help entrepreneurs facing serious financial management issues and those facing the risk of bankruptcy.
In 2022, a total of 664 entrepreneurs were made aware of the availability of the second chances option through various government initiatives, he said.
“Out of this number, 40 entrepreneurs were selected to participate in the special guidance programme of the National Entrepreneurship Institute (Insken) for the period of four months starting from Oct 17, 2022,” Ewon said.
He added that SME Corp also signed a memorandum of understanding with AKPK on Feb 3 to assist entrepreneurs in education and financial and credit management.
“This strategic collaboration is seen as being able to help and facilitate entrepreneurs in making wise and prudent financial decisions, especially in the post-pandemic era,” he said.
