Lending to farmers grows 13pc in H1

Lending to farmers grew over 13 per cent or Tk 11.77 billion in the first half (H1) of this fiscal following prod to bankers by the central bank for catering higher demand for funds in the farm sector, officials said.
The disbursement of farm credits rose to Tk 99.33 billion in the July-December period of the FY 2016-17 from Tk 87.56 billion in the same period of the FY16, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) latest statistics.
Of the total Tk 99.33 billion, eight state-owned banks disbursed Tk 46.07 billion, and the remaining Tk 53.26 billion was handed out by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs).
All scheduled banks achieved 56.60 per cent of their annual agricultural credit-disbursement target for the FY 17, fixed at Tk 175.50, the BB data showed.
The central bank is set to review the farm-credit disbursement and recovery by eight state-owned banks on January 31, according to a BB senior official.
The eight state-owned banks are: Sonali Bank Limited, Janata Bank Limited, Agrani Bank Limited, Rupali Bank Limited, BASIC Bank Limited, Bangladesh Development Bank Limited (BDBL), Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) and Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB).
"We'll advise the banks at the meeting for expediting disbarment of such credits to meet the growing demand from the interested farmers across the country during the ongoing boro-robi cropping season," the BB official told the FE Monday.
He also said the central bank is still working to achieve the agro-credit- disbursement target by the end of this fiscal.
"We'll ask the public banks to provide adequate credit support to farmers in time without any harassment to facilitate the overall agriculture production," the central banker explained.
The central bank will also review the performances of both agriculture credit disbursement and recovery of all PCBs and FCBs in the month of February to know the overall agro-credit situation, according to the BB official.
The recovery of farm loans, however, rose to Tk 89.91 billion during the period under review from Tk 84.21 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal.
At the upcoming meetings, the central bank will also ask all the banks to boost recovery drives of the farm loans that will help reduce the amount of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the sector, another BB official said.
The amount of NPLs with farmers rose to Tk 49.50 billion during the H1 of the FY 17 from Tk 43.61 billion in the same period last fiscal year.
The share of NPLs in the total outstanding loans of the agriculture sector also rose to 13.79 per cent in the first six months of this fiscal from 13.40 per cent in the same period of the FY 16.
Total outstanding loans in the sector stood at Tk 359.05 billion during the period under review against Tk 325.37 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal, the BB data showed.
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