Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The central bank of Bangladesh has asked commercial banks for taking effective measures to achieve their agro-credit disbursement targets by the end of this fiscal.

The instruction came at a special meeting with senior officials of 30 foreign and local private banks at the Bangladesh Bank (BB) headquarters in Dhaka on Tuesday.

BB Agricultural Credit Department general manager Manoj Kanti Bairagi chaired the event where BB executive director Ashok Kumar Dey was present as the chief guest.

The banks, whose disbursement performance was below 50 per cent, made a commitment to achieving their targets by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2018-19.

Talking to the BBN, a BB senior official said the central bank will closely review the banks’ performance to help them achieve their targets by the end of FY ’19.

The BB’s latest moves came against the backdrop of a falling trend in farm credit disbursement in recent months of this fiscal.

The agriculture loan disbursement dropped by nearly 5.0 per cent to BDT 102.31 billion during the July-December period of FY ’19 from BDT 107.56 billion in the same period last fiscal.

All the banks so far have achieved nearly 47 per cent of their annual agricultural loan disbursement target for FY ’19. The target has been fixed at BDT 218 billion.

The central banker also said the next review meeting of all private commercial banks and foreign commercial banks is due for February 20 at the BB headquarters.

On the other hand, Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) Managing Director Md Ali Hossain Prodhania said both disbursement and recovery of farm credits may increase in the coming months, which would help achieve the overall target by end of this fiscal.

The recovery of farm loans, however, rose to BDT 103.93 billion during the July-December period of FY ’19 from BDT 101.32 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal.

BBN/SSR/AD