The Swiss government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with its Indonesian counterpart to facilitate access to credit for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
Swiss Minister of Economic Affairs Joseph Deiss told a press conference that a credit line of up to USUS$100m would be channelled to five local banks.
The project dubbed Access to Finance for SMEs in Indonesia would be a joint cooperation between Bank Indonesia, the World Bank's financial arm the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and non-governmental organisation (NGO) Swisscontact, the minister said.
“The credit line will include a special incentive scheme for lending to SMEs in the tsunami-affected region in northern Sumatra,” he said.
He further explained that the credit line was accompanied by a technical package and incentive schemes to encourage the banks to grant loans to SMEs in tsunami-stricken areas.
