DENPASAR: The government claims that the People’s Business Credit (KUR) program has improved the status of 400,000 debtors out of 3.2 million who were initially ineligible for bank loans, making them now eligible to obtain credit.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono revealed that as of July 2010, a total of 3 million small and medium enterprise (SME) owners have accessed the KUR program.
"As many as 96% of the entrepreneurs who accessed these loans took loans with an average value of Rp4 million," he said this morning.
He also stated that the government guarantees loans worth Rp2 trillion, which can help generate up to Rp20 trillion in micro financing. According to President Yudhoyono, poverty alleviation remains the top priority.
"There are four development strategies, namely pro-growth, pro-employment, pro-poverty, and pro-environment."
He claimed that the proportion of Indonesia’s poor population living below the poverty line decreased from 16.7% in 2004 to 14.1% in 2009.
"Even during the crisis, we managed to reduce the poverty rate to 13.3% as of March 2010," he added.
(source: BISNIS.COM)