Government lends graduates a helping hand

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 17 — Graduates who apply for business loans in future may no longer need to provide guarantors or collaterals as the government plans to do away with it, Entrepreneur and Cooperatives Development Minister Datuk Noh Omar said.

Noh said he had called for a study on the matter following a discussion at the two-day business financing seminar in Johor Baharu over the weekend.

“At the moment, we have the micro credit, a loan facility which does not require guarantors or collaterals but it is only for loans below RM50,000.

“We now want to see how we can help graduates who want to take loans exceeding that amount. We are aware that it is not easy to provide guarantors or collaterals,” he told reporters after attending the signing of an agreement between his ministry and the Higher Education Ministry today.

Also present was Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.

Noh said the facility would be extended to graduates who had been blacklisted for failing to pay their study loans.

He said a new scheme would also be introduced for those interested in embarking into franchise business where they would be required to undergo training as required by the franchisors.

They would be provided with a monthly allowance and would be assured of loans upon completing their training.

“But if they drop out of the course, they will have to pay whatever the amount the ministry has given them, either in the form of aid or loan,” he said.

Meanwhile, Noh said, the cabinet had given the nod for the setting up of another university under the Majlis Amanah Rakyat, called the Malaysia-Japan University (Maju).

The first intake would be in July next year at its campus at the Mara Professional College in Beranang, Selangor, with the Japanese government providing the learning equipment and lecturers.

He said for a start, the university, which had been in the pipeline since 2001, would have a faculty, the Technological Engineering Faculty, which would fully adopt the Japanese curriculum.

He said the ministry was also planning to upgrade the German-Malaysian Institute, which only offers diploma courses at the moment, into a university next year. — Bernama