Credit disbursement to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has increased by 19.86 per cent in the first six months of 2017, compared to the corresponding period in the last year, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data.
"The growth of SME loan disbursement witnessed an upward trend as the central bank has further strengthened its monitoring and supervision over the loan disbursement by the banks and financial institutions (FIs)," a senior Bangladesh Bank official told BSS on Sunday.
All banks and FIs have already disbursed over Tk 835.06 billion in loans in January-June period in 2017, which was Tk 138.37 billion higher compared to the same period in 2016.
They have already disbursed 62.39 per cent of their SME loan target in the year while the disbursement rate was 61.38 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The central bank has set a loan disbursement target of Tk 1338.53 billion for 2017. The figure was Tk 1135.03 billion in 2016.
Additional Managing Director of the Mutual Trust Bank (MTB) M Hashem Chowdhury said SMEs have already become the most powerful and sustainable pillars of Bangladesh economy, covering both non-traditional manufacturing and service sectors.
"Bangladesh Bank is also working relentlessly towards the development of the sector to achieve higher GDP growth," he added.
According to BB data, FIs have shown better performance than the commercial banks, as the FIs disbursed over Tk 43.29 billion till June, which was 41.81 per cent higher compared to corresponding period of the previous year.
During the January-June period, the commercial banks disbursed over Tk 791.77 billion, which was 18.85 per cent higher compared to the same period of the previous year.
Banks and FIs have disbursed over Tk 199.40 billion in loans to the manufacturing sector, over Tk 102.22 billion to the service sector and over Tk 533.44 billion to the trade sector.
A total of 3,82,916 manufacturing, service and trade organisations received the loans as of June 2017 .
Banks and FIs also provided over Tk 12.21 billion in loans to the cottage industries, over Tk 102.57 billion to the micro industries, over Tk 328.26 billion to the small industries and over Tk 392 billion to the medium industries.
During the period, the banks and FIs disbursed over Tk 23.33 billion to 28,892 organisations run by women entrepreneurs.
The banks and FIs also disbursed over Tk 118.15 billion to the 74,794 organisations of new entrepreneurs.
During the period, the banks and FIs disbursed over Tk 4.99 billion to 8,318 new women entrepreneurs' organisations.
During the January-June period, the banks and FIs recovered over Tk 603.15 billion. The figure was over Tk 607.31 billion in the same period of the previous year.
