The commercial banks and financial institutions (FIs) set a new record in lending to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) disbursing Tk1,00, 910 crore in a single year.
The impressive figure for 2014 represents a phenomenal increase in lending from the full spectrum of finance providers including state-owned banks, private banks, foreign banks and non-banking financial institutions, reports BSS.
Of the total amount disbursed up to December 30 last year, banking sector laid out Tk 98,032 crore when the FIs shared the rest Tk2, 877 crore. The annual growth in SME lending was over 13%.
“The central bank has expanded SME financing to create new entrepreneurs and employment opportunities in addition to empower women,” Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor said earlier when he was talking about the objective of accelerating SME financing.
Last year banks provided loans to over 5 lakh, of which 42, 730 were women, according to BB. A BB document also shows that the SME loan programme so far created around 1.5 million new employment opportunities across the country.
“The banks and FIs increased their lending programme for SME sector as advised and encouraged by the central bank,” said general manager of SME and Special Programmes Department Swapan Kumar Roy.
Roy said the quality of SME financing also improved due to constant and effective monitoring of the central bank.
He said the loan recovery also increased phenomenally last year, which stood 64.95 percent higher at Tk69, 172 crore at the end of December.
BB latest data also showed that the major share of the total disbursed SME loan goes to business, with receiving Tk62, 767 crore or 62% of the total lending to SME. Industrial sector got the second highest amount of loan of Tk30, 246 crore, which was nearly 30% of the total disbursement.
