Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh’s overall small and medium enterprise (SME) credit disbursement increased by 22.49 per cent in 2016 following strengthened monitoring and supervision by the central bank.
All banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) disbursed BDT 1,419.35 billion loan to 634,574 SME entrepreneurs across the country in 2016, which was 125 per cent higher than the previously-fixed target of BDT 1,135.03 billion, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) latest statistics.
A total of BDT 1,158.70 billion SME loan was disbursed in 2015.
“Not only disbursement but also recovery of such loans had also increased significantly in 2016,” a senior BB official told BBN in Dhaka.
The recovery of SME loans increased by more than 13 per cent to BDT 1,226.43 billion in the last calendar year from Tk 1,079.84 billion in a year ago, the BB data showed.
The loans were given to the SMEs of more than 60 sub-sectors, such as light-engineering, handicraft, flower, fish-processing, handloom, rice-mill, jamdani, Rajshahi silk, khadi, bio-gas and compost fertiliser.
The central banker also said a meeting with senior officials of all the banks and NBFIs is scheduled to be held next week to review the overall SME loan situation. “Fixation of the SME loan disbursement target for 2017 will be discussed in the meeting.”
Currently, the central bank is maintaining a three-tier monitoring system to ensure growth of the SME sector in Bangladesh.
Under the monitoring system, the BB headquarters, its ten branch offices across the country and the head-offices of all commercial banks are regularly reviewing implementation of the SME credit programmes.
BBN/SSR/AD