Jute millers poised to get export-credit fillip

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FE Report
Both government-owned and private banks agreed Sunday to provide export credit at the rate of 8.0 per cent interest to the country's jute millers.
The interest rate includes 1.0 per cent service charge in addition to the existing 7.0 per cent interest applicable to export sectors.
The agreement was made Sunday at a meeting held at the Secretariat with Textile and Jute Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui in the chair, the meeting sources said.
Senior officials of the finance ministry, managing directors and the executives of different state-owned and private commercial banks and representatives from private jute mills and state-run Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) were present at the meeting.
The meeting was convened to review the opinions that the finance ministry had made following the recommendations made by the Jute Advisory Committee.
"As per the provision, a 7.0 per cent interest is applicable to export credit, but the banks have agreed to charge an additional 1.0 per cent as service charge to it, a meeting source said.
Among others, the meeting also discussed the issue of keeping the CC (cash credit) loans of BJMC and private mills in 'block account' for two-and-half years for helping resolve their financial problems.
The meeting was informed that the BJMC-run mills would get 100 per cent loan rescheduling facility, while the private sector millers would be able to reschedule 30 per cent out of their outstanding loans.
Presently, the outstanding loans of BJMC and private sector mills with banking system are about Tk 12 billion and Tk 14 billion respectively.
Following the appeals of the private jute millers, the textile and jute minister assured them of enhancing this rescheduling facility up to 50 per cent in the future.
The meeting also discussed the ban that the government had recently slapped on export of raw jute.
The textile and jute minister told the meeting that the government would launch investigation into the reason how raw jute was exported to India despite the fact that prices of the fibre in the Indian market were much higher than that of Bangladesh.
Besides, the government would also investigate into the export of around 0.4 million bales of raw jute in the name of rejected grades (BTR).