The Government has announced another government business loan Malaysia, known as Pelan Jana SemulaEkonomi Negara (PENJANA) as an effort to reduce the impact of the Covid-19 Outbreak on the National economy. The announcement has been made by Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, as one of the initiatives provided to enable the country’s economy to recover.
Previously, SME and micro businesses received various assistance and government business loans in Malaysia such as Geran Khas Prihatin worth RM3,000 and BSN and TEKUN Micro loans with zero interest.
In PENJANA’s economic plan, the welfare and sustainability of SMEs and Micro during this tough period are the government’s top priority. Therefore, they provide various initiatives to help the rakyat and added PENJANA as the government business loan Malaysia to cushion SMEs as the heart of the country’s economic activities.
On top of PENJANA, the government also provides other assistance to SMEs and Microbusiness. The help is as follows:
1. Wage Subsidy Program.
The company can benefit from the extension of the Wage Subsidy Program for another 3 months. This program will assist companies with a wage subsidy to employees of RM 600 per employee up to a maximum of 200 employees per eligible company.
The wage subsidy program could help the affected business activities that were prohibited to operate during the last Movement Control Order such as the Tourism sector. The affected employers can apply for the subsidy provided for their employees under certain rules and conditions.
2. Incentives for the Companies Offering Internship or Jobs to The Unemployed
Besides the PENJANA and other government business loan Malaysia, the employers would also be given an incentive of RM600 up to RM1,000 per month for 6 months if they hire unemployed as their employees. They also entitle to the same incentive if they hire university students as their interns. There are different variations of incentives such as employers will be given RM800 if they hire unemployed people under 40 years old, and RM1,000 if they hire disabled workers and unemployed people aged 40 years and above. An incentive of RM 600 will be given to employers if they hire university graduates.
3. RM5,000 grant to Nursery Entrepreneurs
The government provides a grant of RM5,000 to nursery operators registered under the Ministry of Women, Family & Community Development (KPWKM). One of the evaluations of granting this grant to the nursery is compliance with the SOP of the Nursery operation.
4.Other grants and government business loan Malaysia
Besides PENJANA, an allocation of RM700 Million will be given to SMEs and companies in the form of grants and loans to encourage SMEs and companies at the intermediate level towards digitization of operations. These include RM100 million in SME Digitalization Grants to be provided in collaboration with telecommunication companies, RM500 million under the SME Technology Transformation Fund as easy loans, and RM100 million in Smart Automation Grants. Each eligible company under Smart Automation Grants will receive grants of up to RM1 million.
