Encourage MSMEs To Increase In Class, KUR Clusters Need Financial Industry And OJK Support

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Apindo Economic Policy Analyst Committee, Ajib Hamdani, assessed that cluster People's Business Credit (KUR) is the best solution to encourage MSMEs to advance to class.

The KUR cluster initiated by the President is the best solution to answer the existing challenges. The answer to the challenge to raise the MSME class and answers to the challenges to improve the welfare of the economic players who support Indonesia's significant GDP," he said in a statement quoted by Antara, Thursday, December 22.

Ajib said that as a sector that supports more than 61.97 percent of the national GDP, MSMEs have at least four basic problems ranging from low financial literacy to quality human resources and technology.

"The understanding of economic actors in this sector tends not to understand about financial reports, the importance of recording and administration, and the financial management system," he said.

The second problem is that the business ecosystem has not yet been built from upstream to downstream. According to Ajib, this is what makes it difficult for MSMEs to survive and not get maximum added value.

The third problem is not or lack of guarantees needed when requiring a loan. While the fourth problem is the low productivity due to the quality of human resources (HR) and the lack of technology.

However, Ajib said that with existing limitations, MSMEs could still run and continue to grow, both in terms of the number of perpetrators and diversifying their businesses.

Hal ini menunjukkan UMKM sebenarnya sangat feasible, tetapi banyak yang belum bankable. Indikasi UMKM ini feasible, misalnya masih banyak pelaku usaha yang mendapatkan pola pembiayaan konvensi, meminjam dari pelanjaran, atau yang pinjam melalui pinjaman online (pinjol) dengan bunga yang sangat tinggi, tetapi usaha masih berjalan dengan baik. Indicator seperti ini menunjukkan, bahkan dengan cost of fund yang tinggi, UMKM masih bisa berjalan, tuturnya.

Furthermore, Ajib hopes that the implementation of KUR clusters can run well supported by the financial industry as distributors and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) as a supervisory agency.

He admitted that the financial industry does tend to be less in favor of MSME players based on credit ratio indicators which are still in the range of 20 percent for MSMEs from the total credit flowing, with a range of IDR 1,200 trillion.

Ideally, the portion of MSMEs can be further increased to 30 percent or around Rp. 1,800 trillion.

"But this is indeed not an easy condition, because the financial industry, especially banking, is an industry that is high in regulation and must be prudent (be careful) in channeling credit. On the other hand, one of the fundamental problems of MSMEs is financial literacy which tends to be still low," he said.

Meanwhile, because MSMEs will not be able to grow naturally and compete with large industries, regulatory intervention is needed so that MSMEs can still have maximum access in the context of obtaining credit.

"OJK has a very central role in this. KUR clusters require technical guidance in the form of regulations issued by the OJK, so that banks have a strong and measurable basis in technical distribution," he said.

Ajib hopes that the KUR cluster program can be carried out optimally and become an effective instrument to boost MSMEs to advance class.

"Don't let this program just become a decoration program, it's good in concept but not optimal in implementation support," said Ajib.