Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Agriculture loan disbursement grew by 22.44 per cent in the first eight months of this fiscal year (FY) due to a higher demand for the credit during the ongoing boro season, officials said.
The disbursement rose to BDT 139.29 billion in the July-February period of the FY 2016-17 from BDT 113.76 billion in same period of FY2015-16, according to the latest statistics of the central bank, released on Tuesday.
Of the amount, eight state-owned banks (SoBs) disbursed BDT 65.04 billion while the remaining BDT 74.25 billion by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs).
All the scheduled banks have already achieved 79.37 per cent of their collective farm loan target for the current FY, which was set at BDT 175.50 billion.
“We’re planning to review the credit disbursement and recovery performances of the eight public banks by the end of this month,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told BBN in Dhaka.
The eight state-owned banks are Sonali Bank Limited, Janata Bank Limited, Agrani Bank Limited, Rupali Bank Limited, BASIC Bank Limited, Bangladesh Development Bank Limited (BDBL), Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) and Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB).
He said the banks will be advised at the meeting to boost the recovery drives in the coming months.
The recovery of farm loans, however, rose to BDT 123.16 billion during the period under the review from BDT 107.55 billion in the same period of the last FY.
The central bank will also ask the banks to provide adequate credit support to farmers in time and without any harassment to facilitate the overall agriculture output, the BB official added.
BBN/SSR/AD