Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Sjarifuddinn Hasan pledges his ministry would create one million new jobs in 2013.

The ministry would launch a number of program to create new jobs such as through National Entrepreneurship Movement to turn out more entrepreneurs, Sjarifuddinn said here on Thursday.

He said he was convinced the target could be reached as more than 90 percent of Indonesian business players are operators of small and medium scale enterprises.

"Among the things that we needs to do is to provide capital for new entrepreneurs," he said.

He said the ministry is preparing a formula for a new scheme under the Program of Small Business Credit (KUR) to serve as a forum to seek capital for new entrepreneurs.

"This would be part of diversification of KUR products," he said.

He said he has submitted a proposal to the KUR Policy Committee, which is chaired by the Chief Economics Minister requesting immediate implementation of the KUR scheme for new entrepreneurs.

He said the National Entrepreneurship Movement succeeded in increasing the number of new entrepreneurs from 570,339 in 2011 to 3,707,205 or 1.56 percent of the country`s total population by the end of 2012.

"This year we hope the number of entrepreneurs could exceed 2 percent of the country`s total population," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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