Farm credit disbursement decreased by nearly 8.0 per cent in July compared to the corresponding period of the last year, officials said.
Disbursement of agricultural loan came down to Tk 9.04 billion in the first month of the current fiscal year (FY) 2014-15 from Tk 9.82 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank statistics.
Of Tk 9.04 billion, six state-owned banks disbursed Tk 3.30 billion, and the remaining Tk 5.74 billion was disbursed by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs).
All scheduled banks have achieved nearly 6.0 per cent of their annual agricultural loan disbursement target for FY 15, fixed at Tk 155.50 billion.
Usually, the disbursement of farm credit remains comparatively low in July but it gradually picks up in remaining months, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) explained.
"We expect disbursement of agriculture loan to rise in the coming months to meet the growing demand of farmers," the central banker told the FE Monday.
He also said the BB has already taken different initiatives to achieve the target by the end of this fiscal year through boosting disbursement of agricultural loan.
As part of the initiatives, the central bank will sit with senior officials of the state-owned banks today (Tuesday) and senior officials of the PCBs and FCBs tomorrow (Wednesday) to review the overall farm credit situation.
"We'll ask the banks at the meetings for taking effective measures to strengthen farm credit disbursement," the central banker said while replying to a query.
He also said the recovery of farm credit increased during the period under review as the banks expedited their recovery drives across the country.
The recovery of farm loans rose to Tk 10.17 billion in the first month of FY 15, from Tk 8.0 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
