KAJANG, Sept 24 — Entrepreneur Development Minister Mohd Redzuan Yusof today called on small and medium enterprise entrepreneurs to exercise greater discipline in repaying their loans with financial institutions.

Their failure to repay the debts had resulted in the banks being unwilling to provide loans to expand their business, he said.

The ministry targeted that 40 per cent of SME entrepreneurs would settle their debts in five years as 27 per cent had done so as of now, he said after launching the CHAK’Z Catering & Event at the Sg Ramal SME Bank Entrepreneurs Premises Complex here.

“We will continue to monitor based on the progress of payments annually. The repayment mechanism of the previous government was not encouraging as it only collected less than one per cent for 2016-2017,” he said.

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Mohd Redzuan said the ministry would train and discipline Malay entrepreneurs especially to repay their bank loans.

 “Their loans are small but they do not want to repay even RM100 a month. If they do not want to repay, how can they help to expand the national economy?” he asked.

He said the government was always ready to provide the initial grants and loans to entrepreneurs who were competitive, disciplined, educated and were into the Industrial Revolution 4.0.

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Mohd Redzuan also said that SME Corp, the central coordinating agency for SMEs, should come under its purview. SME Corp now comes under the International Trade and Industry Ministry.

The matter would be finalised and announced officially after discussions with other ministries, he said, adding that there could be a need to fine-tune several issues after Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad returned from his working visits to London and New York.

On CHAK’Z Catering & Event, the minister said it supported the entrepreneur development programme to raise marketability for youths in the country.

CHAK’Z Catering, owned by Tele-Flow F&B Sdn Bhd, is the central kitchen for five branches, namely Bukit Jelutong, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Sunway Putra Mall and Langkawi. 

It is led by two chefs, Kabir Abdul Rahman and Mohd Zalizam Mohd Rasidi, and offers hotel types of food at reasonable prices. — Bernama