TANAH MERAH, Feb 8 — The National Entrepreneur Group Economic Fund (Tekun Nasional) has allocated RM105 million for entrepreneurs this year, said its chairman Datuk Seri Mohamad Supardi Md Noor.

He said at the same time, he hoped that entrepreneurs who had taken loans from Tekun Nasional could make repayments in a timely manner so that more entrepreneurs who needed business capital could receive similar assistance.

"We aim to collect about RM205 million in loan repayments this year.

"It is our hope that the existing borrowers will make loan repayments to enable us to provide similar financial assistance to other entrepreneurs,” he said.

He said this to reporters after officiating the opening of the Ar Rahnu Tekun premises in Tanah Merah which was also attended by Tekun Nasional chief executive officer Datuk Adam Abd Ghani here today.

Mohamad Supardi also said that Tekun Nasional has to work hard using all available resources to carry out the National Entrepreneurship Policy 2030 in the next 10 years.

"We will increase the number of initiatives during this period to attract more people in the country to venture into entrepreneurship,” he said.

Commenting on the Tanah Merah branch of the Ar Rahnu Tekun, he said the premises started operations on January 6 by providing mortgage financing by accepting gold products as collateral.

"The financing highlights the Syariah-compliant pawnbroking services and is one of our efforts to assist entrepreneurs dealing with capital issues,” he said.

He said to date the Ar Rahnu Tekun has carried out 32,006 transactions totalling RM81.3 million since its inception in 2015 up till January this year.

"Tekun Nasional will expand Ar Rahnu services throughout the country and thus far we have branches in Shah Alam, Wangsa Maju, Sentul, Semenyih, Alor Setar, Johor Baru, Tawau, Kota Baru and Tanah Merah,” he said. — Bernama