Hopefully, this action can address the problem of limited access to financing ..."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesia's Financial Services Authority (OJK) has launched a Food AKSI program, which is a synergy policy for accelerating financial inclusion to achieve food sovereignty.

"The Food AKSI program is a concrete effort made by OJK, together with related ministries and the financial service industry, to speed up and improve food sector financing, especially in the 11 major commodities," Chairman of the OJK, Muliaman D. Hadad, said in Jakarta on Friday.

The Food AKSI program is an acronym for the Food Acceleration, Synergy and Financial Inclusion program in the field of food.

The launch of the program in West Sumatra on Friday was attended by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, members of Commission XI of the House of Representatives and the Governor of West Sumatra province.

In addition, officials from the Agriculture Ministry, the Ministry of Trade, the Agrarian Ministry were also present, apart from associations and industry leaders, as well as financial services and financial technology players (FinTech) in the agriculture sector.

The Food AKSI program is part of the follow-up "Synergy Program of Action for Peoples Economy," which was been launched by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) in April 2016.

This program is also part of the implementation of the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (SNKI) launched by the President in November 2016.

"Hopefully, this action can address the problem of limited access to financing, especially in the agricultural sector, food security, forestry, agriculture, and fisheries," Hadad said.

OJK expects the program to become a national movement for introducing and implementing a financing scheme and to support the momentum of accelerating access to financing in the food sector

Through this program, in 2017, a total of 19 bank partners have set a target of increasing loans by 14.12 percent to Rp260 trillion for farmers, forest and labors.

Meanwhile, farmers insurance and premiums will increase by 64.88 percent to Rp180 billion while the acreage of insured land will increase to one million hectares. Cattle business insurance and premiums will jump 238.42 percent to Rp27 billion and the number of insured cows surge to 120,000 heads of cattle.

Credit guarantee in the agricultural sector rose by 5.42 percent to Rp8.8 trillion and KUR (micro loan) credit guarantee in the agricultural sector rose by 5.44 percent to Rp9.9 trillion.
(Uu.A014/INE/KR-BSR/F001)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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