BSS, Rajshahi :
SME Financing Company Limited, a subsidiary company of Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB), has disbursed Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) loan worth Taka 67.79 crore.
The loans were disbursed among 6,105 SME entrepreneurs’ aims at promoting the sector in different potential areas of Rajshahi region during the current 2020-21 fiscal year.
It has also recovered loans of Taka 67.46 cr from 5,203 borrowers during the same period.
The company also adopted special measures of disbursing loan worth Taka 10.80 crore among 1,286 women entrepreneurs in the SME sector for their economic development.
The company has set the target of disbursing loans worth Taka 95 crore and recovering loans of Taka 87 crore in the current fiscal.
These were revealed in the 34th virtual meeting of the governing council of the company held at the Board room of RAKUB headquarters on Thursday.
Chaired by Roisul Alam Mondal, chairman of the council and RAKUB, the meeting was addressed, among others, by RAKUB Managing Director Ismail Hossain, council members Golam Mostofa and Professor Rustam Ali Ahmed, RAKUB General Managers Joynal Abedeen and Joynal Islam and Chief Executive Officer of the company Abdullah Salahuddin Gazi.
Roisul Alam asked the company officials to expedite the SME credit programme through intensifying motivational, awareness building and monitoring activities so that the target group of the people can derive its total benefits.
Terming the promising SME sector as labour-intensive he viewed that successful promotion of the sector could be the effective means of alleviating poverty, generating employment side by side with accelerating economic growth.
SME promotion is very important for reducing the existing gap between rural and urban areas besides recouping the losses caused by the adverse impact of Covid-19 pandemic, he added.
The meeting was told that the SME loan was disbursed among the entrepreneurs in 43 upazilas of Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Natore, Naogaon, Pabna, Sirajganj, Bogura, Joypurhat and Kurigram districts.
Main objectives of the loans are of creating an intensive investment scope for the agro-based SMEs in the light of the government industrial policy and for supplementing the government’s efforts to attain food security and economic emancipation.
