BB moves to expedite farm loan disbursement, recovery

The central bank, which is going through a leadership change, will hold regional stakeholder conferences to expedite both disbursement and recovery of farm credits in the fiscal year (FY) 2016-17.
 "We expect that arranging such conferences will be concluded by the end of April," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Monday.
He also said five branch offices of the central bank out of 10 were now arranging the conferences in different places of the country.
Three of its branch offices-in Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi-have already arranged such conferences to share opinions and views of the stakeholders in this connection.
"Such feedbacks from the stakeholders will be considered in formulating the next agricultural loan policy for the FY 17," the central banker noted.
Meanwhile, farm-credit disbursement grew by nearly 15 per cent in the first eight months of the FY16 following persuasion by the bankers at the central bank continuously, the BB official added.
Disbursement of the credits rose to Tk 113.76 billion in the July-February period from Tk 99.14 billion in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, according to the central bank's latest statistics.
Of the Tk 113.76 billion, eight state-owned banks disbursed Tk 58.10 billion, and the remaining Tk 55.66 billion was disbursed by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs).
All scheduled banks have achieved more than 69 per cent of their combined annual agricultural loan-disbursement target for FY16, fixed at Tk 164 billion, the BB data showed.
Talking to the FE, another BB official said all the scheduled banks have already been asked to boost both disbursement and recovery drives across the country.
 "We're working continuously to achieve farm-credit-disbursement target by the end of the FY16," the central banker said, explaining the objective of the drives.
As part of the move, the central bank is scheduled to sit with the senior officials of eight state-owned banks on March 31 to review their overall performances on farm-credit disbursement and recovery.
The central bank is scheduled to review the performances of both PCBs and FCBs in the month of April.
The recovery of farm loans, however, rose to Tk 107.55 billion during the period under review from Tk 103.96 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
The official also said the central bank has already strengthened its monitoring and supervision to ensure such credit facilities for each of the interested farmers across the country without any harassment.
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