Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation has urged the Bangladesh Bank (BB) to take necessary steps for providing SME loans at a single digit interest rate to combat financial crisis being faced by the new entrepreneurs.
KM Habibullah, chairman of SME Foundation, made the plea at a meeting with the central bank governor Atiur Rahman held at the BB headquarters in the capital on Tuesday.
The financial crisis has appeared as the major obstacle to building new entrepreneurship at the grassroots level as it is difficult for them to do their business well only because of higher interest rate on loans, Habibullah apprised the governor.
Urging the governor to take immediate initiatives to cut the interest rate on SME loans for all the entrepreneurs, he said: “Bangladesh Bank could solve the existing financial problem by providing loans at a single digit interest rate from the funds allocated for SMEs.”
In this regard, he also said SME foundation has been providing loans among the entrepreneurs at a single digit interest rate to solve their financial problem in a limited-scale, which is not sufficient enough for boosting the SME entrepreneurship across the country.
In reply, BB governor Atiur Rahman assured the SME foundation chief of paving the way for the central bank to provide SME loans from its own fund at a lower interest rate.
He, however, said it would be better if the government could allocate a certain fund for the SMEs in the annual budget on regular basis.
“Apart from that, the central bank won’t be able to provide loans beyond the bank’s interest rate to comply with the donor’s condition in disbursing loans in the market,” he also added.
