There are a total of 266,118 loan defaulters in the country as of December 2018, said Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.
The minister informed the matter at the parliament on Thursday.
Answering a starred question of Waresat Hussain Belal, MP of Netrokona 5, Kamal also made available the list of top 20 loan defaulters, published in line with an earlier decision.
However, a number of stay orders of the High Court prevented names of some defaulters from being published, noted the finance minister.
The top 20 defaulters, as per the Credit Information Bureau of Bangladesh Bank are Quantum Power System Limited, Samannaz Super Oil Ltd, BR Spinning Mills Limited, Suprov Spinning Limited, Rimex Footwear Ltd, Rising Steel Limited, Computer Source Limited, Benetex Industries Ltd, Max Spinning Mills, SA Oil Refinery Ltd, Rubya Vegetable Industries Ltd, Anowara Spinning Mills, Crescent Leather Products Ltd, Suprov Rotor Spinning Limited, Yasir Enterprise, Chowdhury Knitwears Ltd, Siddique Traders, Rupali Composite Leather Wear Ltd, Alppa Composite Towels Limited and MM Vegetables Products Ltd.
The sum of non-performing loans (NPL) stood at Tk93,911 crore at the end of 2018, up from Tk74,303 crore a year ago, according to Bangladesh Bank data. They accounted for 10.3% of the banking sector's total loans, up from 9.3% in 2017.
The majority of the total amount of NPLs is still held by the country's eight state-owned commercial banks, standing at Tk53,484 crore at the end of 2018, up just over 25% year-on-year.
Yet worryingly the amount of default loans is rising faster at the private commercial banks, having ballooned by 30% year-on-year to end 2018 at Tk38,140 crore.
Against this background, Mustafa Kamal also briefed the House on the imminent launch of three new private banks - namely Bengal Bank Limited, People's Bank Limited and Citizen Bank Limited, after the central bank in a board meeting on February 17 decided to issue their licenses.
Responding to a written question of Md Nurunnabi Chowdhury MP, of Bhola 3, the finance minister said there are currently 41 private commercial banks and nine foreign banks in the country, besides the state-owned commercial banks.
