to the socioeconomic development of the country, the government has introduced various programmes to assist smes through its ministries and agencies. the infrastructure to support access to sme financing has also vastly improved compared to a decade ago. in 2012, a total of rm217. 2 billion in financing has been disbursed to smes through the banking system, compared to only rm87. 1 billion in 2003. this year, 155 sme development programmes with an allocation of rm18. 4 billion have been developed and which is being channeled through government agencies and the private sector. to enhance the enabling infrastructure for sme financing, the credit bureau malaysia was established in 2008 to provide comprehensive and credible credit information and ratings for smes in malaysia. more than 1. 1 million credit reports have now been generated by credit bureau malaysia to facilitate access to financing for businesses since its inception. in addition, smes with limited collateral or track record are able to benefit from the credit guarantee facility provided by credit guarantee corporation that extends its services to include advisory. in efforts to ensure simple, efficient and prompt application process, bank negara malaysia and the association of banks in malaysia ( abm ) introduced partner 1, a simplified application form and documentation checklist which has now been adopted by 8 domestic bis central bankers ’ speeches banking institutions. this initiative has been enhanced in partner 2, in which reasons are provided for loan applications that have not been successful. this is to provide to the smes the opportunity to address the weaknesses or limitation thereby enhancing their potential to gain access for financing. in addition, smes facing challenges in their business operations, may now seek assistance from the various agencies namely the sme corporation ’ s one referral centre and the bank negara malaysia ’ s small debt resolution scheme ( sdrs ) when confronted with financial stress. under the small debt resolution scheme, a total of 894 smes have now been assisted since its establishment in 2005. addressing the problems and challenges at an earlier stage will contain the deterioration, and will enhance the prospect for a positive solution. as our economy evolves and transitions towards higher value added activities, the financial support services that is being provided by the financial institutions also needs to evolve. financial institutions have to recognise that smes will increasingly become specialised and diversified, and will require a much more customised and differentiated financial services. financial institutions will also need to broaden their dimension to look beyond the traditional business activities and be positioned be able to provide financial services

, as this is a complex estimation task that may not even be feasible until several years from now. on the other hand, it can be argued that the costs were small to begin with because of the situation represented by a worldwide financial crisis. furthermore, in implementing the capital controls, the central bank has attempted to reduce these costs as much as possible by granting exemptions. a bill of legislation relaxing certain restrictions affecting firms and individuals is expected in the near future. but none of this changes the need to make every effort to abolish the capital controls. i mentioned long - term costs. in addition to this, the controls were imposed as an emergency measure and constitute a deviation from our contractual obligations under the eea agreement. that deviation has been approved by our counterparties, but we are still obliged to make our best effort towards lifting the controls without jeopardising financial and economic stability. does this mean we must revert all the way to the regime we had before the crisis? i think that, as regards corporate and household capital movements, the answer is broadly yes. on the other hand, it will be necessary to limit financial companies ’ exchange rate risk more than was done before the crisis, including the maturity mismatches in their balance sheets and overall size of foreign - denominated balance sheets. it will also be necessary to impose tight restrictions on foreign - denominated lending to households and businesses without corresponding foreign currency - linked income. but these restrictions are prudential rules rather than capital controls. the central bank sent the minister of economic bis central bankers ’ speeches affairs a report on this topic at the end of 2010 and intends to send him a more in - depth report on the same subject shortly after easter. looking ahead to the next several years, the question is not whether we lift the controls, but how. this is not the time or place to go into that topic in detail, as it has been discussed recently in some depth by the bank and its representatives, and that discussion will presumably continue. the main point is that carefully preparing the liberalisation process, as is currently being done, significantly reduces the risk to financial and economic stability. progress has been made in this area, and a great deal more can be done in the near future. there is quite a bit at stake : the short - term benefits conferred by the capital controls could be lost at the eleventh hour and several years of long - term benefits of free capital movements could be burned up if liberalisation is