Economic Minister Darmin Nasution. (Kompas.com/Estu Suryowati)

The government expands microloans (KUR) to bolster the productive economy, Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said on Thursday.

Darmin said that considering the current high risk and cost, the government plans to distribute the microloans with bigger interest rate subsidies along with guarantees.

"Like we have announced before, we decreased the rate from 22 percent to 12 percent. Moreover, we also expanded the scope of KUR recipients," Darmin said in a statement from the presidential policy team to thejakartapost.com.

The government will revise the 2015 ministerial decree on KUR to bolster the KUR. The revisions include KUR for micro, small and medium enterprises (UMKM), candidates of Indonesian migrant workers, family members of Indonesian migrant workers and family members of retired Indonesian workers.

Darmin cited that Indonesia's bank credits slowed in the past year amid the country's slow economic growth. In the first part of this year, the banks' loan growth grew 10.4 percent, down from 16.65 percent in the same period last year.

The UMKM loans also accelerated at a slow pace at 9.2 percent year-on-year by the end of June this year.

The ministry's data showed that there had been 4.39 trillion loans distributed by Oct. 8, 2015 with 270,127 debtors.(rin)(++++)

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