Entrepreneurs Still Feeling Difficulty: Asking For Credit Relaxation To Be Extended Up To 2 Years

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) has requested that the credit restructuring program or bank credit relief be extended. This is because this relaxation is needed to help the company's financial cash flow amid the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic.

General Chairman of the Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) Hariyadi Sukamdani hopes that the credit relief program can be extended for the next two years. The reason is, even though the business is currently running, it needs business recovery which is considered to take years to come.

Hariyadi said that business people have just started to hang on a lot of hopes in 2021. Because, the economic projection can grow by 4.9 percent to 5.1 percent this year, it is gone when the COVID-19 pandemic comes in your way.

Furthermore, Hariyadi said that the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was the heaviest in the last 20 years, in which in 1998 Indonesia experienced a financial crisis.

"Apindo hopes that the OJK (Financial Services Authority) can consider extending the implementation of relaxation as stipulated in POJK No. 11 of 2020, which should end in March 2021 and can be extended for the next 1 year or 2 years," he said at the Issuers Association event. Indonesia (AEI) entitled 'Outlook 2021', Wednesday, October 21.

Credit relaxation or banking restructuring as regulated in POJK Number 11 of 2020 and POJK Number 14 of 2020, said Hariyadi, has been running quite well, so that it can help the company's financial cash flow during a pandemic.

"Hopefully, the ease of bank credit relaxation can run more smoothly and can become a standard in all lines of banking and non-banking finance, especially for working capital loans, especially for businesses that are doing recovery," he said.

Apindo, he continued, also continued to encourage government efforts to accelerate the execution and implementation of the large amount of stimulus that was determined, so that the economy could move quickly. Among other things, the acceleration of social assistance to the realization of government spending.

However, Hariyadi said that business circles also understand that in this condition it will be difficult to collect taxes. For this reason, loosening the deficit is needed so that the economy does not slump again.

Meanwhile, Hariyadi requested that all parties be objective in looking at the Omnibus Law on Cipta Kerja, which was passed by the DPR on October 5, in particular the Labor cluster. According to him, this country needs investment that can absorb a lot of workforce, seeing that 57.4 percent of job seekers are junior high school graduates and below and there are around 7 million unemployed each year.

Meanwhile, with more than 100 million data on people who received subsidized assistance from the government, it is necessary to have better access to formal workers. However, Hariyadi admitted, there are challenges that must be faced.

"The challenge is to maintain the substance of the Job Creation Law so that it is not reduced in a number of PPs which are currently being discussed," he said.