The Malaysian Government, through the Ministry of International Trade and Industries (MITI), appointed the SME Development Bank Malaysia Berhad (SME Bank) to manage the “Graduate Entrepreneur Fund” or in local context, “Tabung Usahawan Siswazah (TUS), which provides funding assistance to partly finance business ventures by unemployed graduates.
The TUS was launched in 1998 as one of the Government strategies to overcome high unemployment rate among the graduates brought about by the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Its main goal is to provide basic entrepreneurial training programme and develop new entrepreneurs among unemployed graduates.
The Government through the MITI has allocated RM87 million to SME Bank to implement the scheme. In 2014, TUS received another RM50 million fund allocation through the national budget. Since then, a total of 1,846 applications have been approved to cater to the demand from the targeted group.
Concerted efforts to help unemployed graduates via TUS are helping them to become successful and responsible entrepreneurs, contributing to the development of their respective communities and to the country’s economy.
The TUS scheme won the 2016 ADFIAP Outstanding Development Projects Awards under the Human Capital Development Category.
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