KOTA BHARU, Oct 9 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has urged all the 3.2 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country which have yet to register their respective businesses to do so to qualify for various assistances including capital loan to expand their business.

Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said by not registering their businesses with the Companies Commission of Malaysia had made it difficult for SME Corporation Malaysia (SME Corp) to help them.

"It is included in SME Corp's master plan to encourage the traders to register their business, but we are not sure why many traders still do not do so considering there are many facilities that they can enjoy," he said.

He said this to reporters after a Townhall Session with SMEs, which was also attended by SME Corp Chief Executive Officer Datuk Hafsah Hashim here Sunday.

The dialogue session was attended by over 1,200 entrepreneurs in Kelantan who had the opportunity to voice out their problems and views directly to Mustapa.

Meanwhile, Mustafa said to-date, a total of 645,000 SMEs registered with SME Corp nationwide is being given assistances to expand their respective businesses.

"Currently, the SMEs' export contribution to the country is 17 per cent while 24 per cent out of the 645,000 SMEs have successfully exported their products overseas," he said.

Nevertheless, he said the figure must be increased through the involvement of more SMEs to capitalise on a bigger market, subsequently increasing their contribution to the nation's gross domestic product.

He said a follow-up action would be undertaken on the participating SMEs which were having problems as it was SME Corp's aspiration to internationalise the SMEs.