Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) will conduct a research in Bangladesh with a view to evaluating its rural finance, officials said.
A team commissioned by APRACA will visit the country to conduct the research on "Bangladesh Rural Finance Enabling Capacity Assessment" from August 16 to August 29, 2015.
The research team will work with different financial, agricultural and development-oriented institutions of the country to obtain pertinent data and documents for analysis.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) will assist the team to co-ordinate with various institutions of the country.
The team will meet with the officials concerned of the ministry of finance (MoF).
As of August 2015, a total of 76 institutions in 21 countries including Bangladesh in the region are affiliated with the APRACA as its members.
Deputy Governor of BB Shitangshu Kumar Sur Chowdhury is the chairman of the association. He could not be reached for his comments despite several attempts made over phone.
Considering the crucial role of agriculture in our economy, the government has accorded greater importance to this sector and continued to provide strong policy support during fiscal year (FY) 2014. Good performance of all sub-sectors within agriculture resulted in an increase of growth of this sector to 3.4 per cent in FY14 from 2.5 per cent in FY13, according to the BB webpage.
The sector contributed 16.3 per cent of GDP during the year. Aligned with government's efforts, BB also articulated a new vision for sustainable agricultural growth by providing broad-based policies and credit for the sector, the page mentioned.
The BB declared its annual agricultural and rural credit policy and programme for FY14 with a disbursement target of Tk 146 billion, which was Tk 141.3 billion in FY13. The goal was to increase the disbursement of agricultural and rural credit by expanding banking services to rural areas, making the farmers accustomed to banking activities and to promote financial inclusion.
Some Tk 164 billion will flow into the countryside in the current FY under an agricultural and rural credit policy and programme announced in July last.
The central bank had fixed the agriculture credit disbursement target at Tk 155.5 billion for the FY 2014-15.
APRACA which promotes cooperation and facilitates mutual exchange of information and expertise in the field of rural finance was first proposed at the Regional Seminar on Agricultural Credit for Small Farmers, sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the Pacific in October 1974.
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Regional group to conduct research on BD\\\'s rural finance
Rezaul Karim | Published: August 14, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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