JAKARTA, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government plans to finance 20,000 village cooperatives this year, a minister said Thursday.
In July, the Southeast Asian country launched more than 80,000 village cooperatives as part of its efforts to strengthen grassroots economic development nationwide.
Cooperatives Minister Ferry Juliantono said each cooperative could access financing of up to 3 billion Indonesian rupiahs (around 180,000 U.S. dollars). The funds, he explained, would be allocated for working capital as well as infrastructure investment, such as storage warehouses and operational trucks.
The government is currently preparing a regulation to accelerate the disbursement of funding to the cooperatives, he added.
So far, 100 cooperatives have begun operations, while 1,064 cooperative proposals have been submitted to state-owned banks for financing.
Earlier this year, the government earmarked 16 trillion rupiahs (around 965 million U.S. dollars) from the surplus of the 2025 State Budget to support cooperative financing. ■
