Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - Bangladesh’s agriculture loan disbursement jumped by 22.79 per cent in the first five months of the current fiscal year (FY) due to higher demand for the credit during the ongoing boro and robi cropping season.
Talking to BBN, a senior official of the Bangladesh (BB) said the farm-loan disbursement grew significantly during the period under review to meet the growing demand for farm loan during the boro and robi cropping season.
He also said the central bank is going to start reviewing the performances in agricultural credit disbursement and recovery by all scheduled banks by the last week of this month.
As per scheduled, the BB will sit with senior officials of the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs) on December 27.
On the other hand, the performances in the farm loan disbursement and recovery by eight state-owned banks will be reviewed on December 28.
The aggregate disbursement of farm credits by the banks rose to BDT 75.71 billion in the July-November period of the FY 17 from the previous mark of BDT 61.66 billion, according to the central bank’s latest statistics.
Of the BDT 75.71 billion, eight state-owned banks distributed BDT 33.96 billion, and the remaining BDT 41.75 billion was disbursed by the PCBs and FCBs.
All the scheduled banks have achieved 43.14 per cent of their annual agricultural credit-disbursement target for the FY 17, fixed at BDT 175.50, the BB data showed.
“We’re now working to achieve the agro-credit-disbursement target by the end of this fiscal,” the central banker noted.
The recovery of agriculture loans, however, rose to BDT 69.69 billion during the period under the review from BDT 60.90 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal.
BBN/SSR/AD