Badrul Ahsan :
On the basis of the banks’ outstanding loans and advances as on April 30, 2017, the Central Bank has set Tk 19,856.34 crore as farm loan disbursement target for banks for the coming financial year (FY 2017-18), Bangladesh Bank sources said.
The new target will be 13.14 per cent higher than that of the current FY17. Firm loan disbursement target for the fiscal 2016-17 was Tk 17,550 crore.
The Central Bank’s projected farm loan disbursement target for the FY 2018-19 will be Tk 21,444.84 crore. It will be Tk 23,160.40 crore for FY 2019-20.
The BB source told The New Nation on Thursday that the Central Bank had fixed the projected target for FY18 in line with the Finance Ministry’s requirement.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith will declare the farm loan disbursement target on June 1 in his budgetary speech in the Parliament, he said.
The Central Bank may revise the target slightly when the agricultural credit policy for FY18 will be finalised.
According to the BB policy, every bank has to disburse at least two per cent of their total lending in the agricultural sector.
The BB has already sent letters to all banks seeking their opinions about the farm loan disbursement target for the coming financial year.
In FY16, the agriculture loan disbursement surpassed the annual target of Tk 17,056.43 crore as farm loans.
Banks disbursed Tk 15,978.46 crore of farm loans in FY15 while the target was Tk 15,550 crore,
In FY14 and FY13, banks disbursed Tk 16,036.81 crore and Tk 14,667.49 crore of farm loans respectively against the target of Tk 14,595 crore and Tk 14,130 crore.
The banks disbursed 98.26 per cent or Tk 17,244.69 crore annual farm loan disbursement target amount in 10 months (July-April) of FY17 as they have been focusing on the area of loan disbursement for last few years due to a lower credit demand from the industrial sector.
The BB official said that the banks would easily surpass their annual farm loan disbursement target this fiscal year as the banks are lowering the interest rates for their almost all products.
