Malaysia’s CIMB Islamic to provide up to 100 mln ringgit financing for SMEs to meet halal certification

Malaysia’s CIMB Islamic will allocate up to 100 million ringgit ($23.96 million) in financing for companies that want to become halal-certified, targeting the 90% of local SMEs that do not have halal certification.

Malaysia’s deputy entrepreneur development minister said in August that 8,120 companies received halal certification in 2018, and that nine out of ten were without halal certification.  

Targetting this 90%, CIMB Islamic said in a statement on Thursday (Nov 28) the financing is aimed at businesses to "become compatible with the requirements of halal certification whether by getting their premises, operations or supply chain to be in line with those requirements."

“The 100 million ringgit financing support is part of CIMB’s 15 billion ringgit commitment to finance SMEs, announced earlier this year,” said CIMB Islamic CEO Ahmad Shahriman Mohd Sharif.

CIMB said in April it would put aside 15 billion ringgit for 100,000 SMEs in the next two years.

Prior to this, in February it announced its CIMB-ASEAN Halal Corridor network to help Malaysian businesses scale globally. It started with a partnership with local halal cosmetics company SimplySiti.

CIMB Islamic posted 47.9% increase in profit before tax for the third-quarter as its overall Group saw its own PBT drop by 10.06%.

The Islamic business earned 388.24 million ringgit ($92.95 million) in profit before tax for the three months ending September 30 compared to 262.51 million ringgit for the same period last year.

Gross financing for the Islamic subsidiary was 76.9 billion ringgit, accounting for 21.3% of the Group’s total loans.

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