BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman asked all banks to provide more financial supports to set up processing industries and adequate storages for perishable crops like potato and tomato so farmers can get fair prices of their produces.
He also said banks should fund build an efficient supply-chain, which will protect the interest of both the consumers and the growers.
Addressing a review meeting on agro credit, Dr Atiur said farmers particularly the growers of potato, tomato, ginger and tamarind suffered losses this year because of price fall on the local market.
“Consumers in big cities and towns are paying high prices for these items (potato, tomato, ginger and tamarind), but the growers are not getting benefit out of it due to lack of processing industries, adequate storages and a proper supply-chain,” the governor said.
The meeting, held at the central bank’s headquarters in the capital city, was a routine one to review the progress of the agro loan disbursement and recovery. The chief executives of all scheduled banks attended the meeting.
The review meeting found that some foreign banks and eight of the new local banks did not disburse any loan to agriculture sector. The governor expressed his disappointment at such inaction of banks in agro credit activities saying that “this was not expected”.
He said providing agro sector with at least 5.0 percent of total loan portfolio is one of the conditions to the licences for opening new banks, which was not followed by the banks who did not disburse any loan to farmers since their launching.
“Does it mean that the banks concerned did not disburse loans to anyone or any sector in the past seven months of their opening?” the governor wondered, but asked the banks to act immediately to follow the rule and support agriculture on priority basis.
The central bank targeted disbursement of Taka 14,595 crore to agriculture sector in the current 2013-14 financial year, which is 3.3 percent higher than last year’s disbursement.
The local and foreign banks disburse Taka 8,820 crore from July-January, which was 60.43 percent of the total disbursement targeted.
Dr Atiur advised banks to speedup their lending process so the disbursement target could be achieved by the end of this financial year.
The governor advised banks to provide more loans to import-supplement produces like pulses, spices, corn and maze and oil seeds so the country can lessen import dependency for these essential items. The banks in July-January period disbursed a total of taka 48 crore to the import-supplement produces, which was 54.0 percent of the total disbursement of Taka 90.93 crore.
He also suggested banks to expedite loan recovery process, which was only 31.0 percent of the total target for recovery till end January.
