Bangladesh's farm credit disbursement in 3 quarters of 2016-17 reaches nearly 2 bln USD

Bangladesh's financial institutions disbursed 158.10 billion taka (about 1.95 billion U.S. dollars) as farm credit during the July-March period in the current 2016-17 fiscal year, data from the central bank showed Sunday.

According to the Bangladesh Bank (BB), farm credit disbursements in Bangladesh, where agriculture still remains the dominant sector for economic growth, surged 30.92 percent year-on-year to over 18.80 billion taka in March.

A central bank official who preferred to be unnamed said farm credit disbursement in March significantly increased as many farmers flocked to low-interest loans during the last few months to procure agro inputs for the current Boro (winter) rice cultivation.

He said more farmers availed the opportunity of farm-credits this fiscal year as the central bank had eased procedures for such loans.

Following disbursement boom in the last 2015-16 fiscal year (July 2015-June 2016), the central bank raised the farm credit target by 7.01 percent to 175.50 billion taka for the current 2016-17 fiscal year.

BB Governor Fazle Kabir had earlier said the disbursement of farm credit crossed the target in the last 2015-16 fiscal year as the central bank has strengthened its monitoring and supervision to the lenders.

The Bangladesh Bank set up the credit program to boost the country's agro-based economy as the Bangladeshi government gave special attention to the sector to augment domestic food production, said the BB official. (1 U.S. dollar equals to about 81 taka). Endit