SHAH ALAM, March 4 — The Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperatives Development (Kuskop) through Perbadanan Nasional Bhd (Pernas) has allocated RM50 million this year to provide financing to assist franchise entrepreneurs, said its Minister, Datuk Ewon Benedick.
He said the allocation covers Franchise/Franchisor Financing Scheme; Pre-Franchise/Pre-Franchisor Financing Scheme; Pre-Franchise (Licensor/Licensee) Financing Scheme; BIT Pre-Franchisor/Pre-Franchisee Financing Scheme; and Recurve Scheme.
“Up to December 31, 2022, a total of RM299 million franchise financing was provided to 1,859 franchise entrepreneurs through various financing schemes.
“As an agency under Kuskop, Pernas has a role in the development of franchise entrepreneurs. It also provides various assistance and support to the entrepreneurs including financing facilities, training and opening up opportunities to micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) entrepreneurs to explore the franchising field,” he said.
He said this in his address when officiating the Business in Transformation Expo 2023 (BITe) at the Setia City Convention Centre, Setia Alam, here today. Also present were Kuskop Deputy Minister K. Saraswathy, Kuskop secretary-general Datuk Seri Suriani Ahmad and Pernas chairman Datuk Hazimah Zainuddin.
Ewon said the organisation of the two-day BITe 2023 starting today would be able to encourage the participation of new entrepreneurs and also enable micro and small entrepreneurs to introduce their business model and expand their brands further.
The BIT programme would also able to assist the micro and small entrepreneurs to carry out their business more competitively and efficiently, he said.
He said Pernas had approved financing totalling RM9.9 million to 313 BIT entrepreneurs as at Dec 31, 2022.
“The BIT Pre-Franchisee Financing package has been improved with financing facility of up to RM50,000 to provide opportunity for potential entrepreneurs to have better business concept. This improvement has given opportunities to many micro and small traders to expand their business by setting up more outlets,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hazimah said Pernas has targeted to develop 24 pre-franchisors and 240 pre-franchisees this year among the BIT entrepreneurs, in an effort to further grow the number of entrepreneurs, thereby increasing the number of local franchise brands.
“What (we) can be proud of is that the participation of micro entrepreneurs in the BIT programme has produced some 1,400 pre-franchisees and created over 2,800 new job opportunities,” she said. — Bernama
