Govt urged to provide incentives, support as recognition to cooperative sector - Angkasa

IPOH - Angkatan Koperasi Malaysia Berhad (Angkasa) hopes that the government will announce incentives and support as enjoyed by the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector, as a recognition to the cooperative sector.

Its president Datuk Seri Dr Abdul Fattah Abdullah said Angkasa had resubmitted the proposal during the budget consultation session chaired by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim two weeks ago.

"This matter has been raised several times over the past 10 years but there is still no decision. A ministerial-level committee has been set up to study the proposal.

"If it is difficult to amend the law, we ask the government to recognise cooperatives so that they can get incentives and the same facilities as SMEs," he said at a press conference after opening the 100th-anniversary carnival of Koperasi Anggota Kerajaan Ipoh Berhad (KAKIB) held at Bulatan Sultan Azlan Shah here, today.

He said the recognition could help cooperatives contribute to the country's socio-economic development like cooperatives in developed countries by diversifying their business activities.

Angkasa also urged major cooperatives to diversify their business activities by engaging in sectors such as retail, wholesale, tourism and healthcare to achieve the National Entrepreneurship Policy 2030 (DKN2030), which targets RM60 billion income from cooperatives by 2025.

Earlier, in his opening remarks, he said according to the statistics released by the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (SKM), there are 1,694 cooperatives in Perak as of last December with a total of 357,390 members, RM563.44 million shares or contributions and RM1.6 billion in assets, generating an income of RM535.54 million.

"I believe that this income can be raised in the future. This is because the business sector has already recovered after the pandemic and the income of the cooperative movement has also increased,” he said. - BERNAMA