Jakarta, June 2 -- Indonesia's Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas (PKP) Maruarar Sirait, popularly known as Ara, stated that micro housing financing aims to simplify access to safe and affordable housing loans for the public.

"This micro housing financing initiative is an effort to ease, accelerate, and assist the community in accessing housing financing and to protect them from loan sharks. Loan sharks cannot defeat the state. Let us unite to combat them," Ara noted in Jakarta on Monday.

The minister observed that many people are currently ensnared by the attractive offers of loan sharks, who lend money at extremely high interest rates, creating a heavy burden for borrowers.

One prominent example is in Majalengka District, West ...