KUALA LUMPUR: The Bumiputera Manufacturers and Services Industry Association (PPIPBM) has been urged to collect data on issues affecting small-and-medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs.

Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said the information could help the government identify the problems they were facing.

He said it was vital for the government to know facts like the amount of money entrepreneurs had borrowed from banks and the difficulty in repaying them, especially with the ongoing food and oil crises, so that it could help deal with any problems they faced.

"PPIPBM needs to help the government to get the details which will help the government come up with comprehensive solutions," he said after launching the National Seminar: Food and Oil Crisis -- Effect on SMEs and Solutions, yesterday.

Mustapa said two main problems they now faced were supply of raw materials and increasing costs.
He said, some entrepreneurs awarded government contracts were facing cash flow problems, as the contracts were fixed to old prices.

He said others, meanwhile, were facing prices that were too competitive, as increasing costs have squeezed their profit margin.

He assured entrepreneurs that the government would look into their plight and advised banks to be lenient with them with the inflation rate at 7.7 per cent.