Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo announced on Wednesday that the government will disburse Rp 2.4 million (US$161) in cash aid to micro and small enterprises starting next week to support businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Starting next week, the government will disburse an emergency capital fund, or what is called productive presidential aid. It is worth Rp 2.4 million per person for 9.1 million vendors, micro and small enterprises," Jokowi said on Wednesday.
"We all know how the pandemic has hit hard not only the small [enterprises], but also medium and large [businesses]."
As a potential COVID-19 vaccine is in the making, Jokowi expressed optimism that the country's economy would get better by early next year. Thus, he hoped micro enterprises could stay afloat until then.
Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Teten Masduki called for micro and small enterprises to actively register themselves to their local cooperative agency in order to receive the government aid.
"We encourage small and micro enterprises that have not yet received any capital and investment banking to actively enroll in their nearby cooperative agency," he said.
Teten said the government had so far collected data on 17 million micro enterprises nationwide.
Under the aid scheme, Rp 2.4 million in cash benefits would be transferred directly to a recipient's bank account following a thorough data verification process. (trn)