An agreement-signing ceremony between Bangladesh Bank and seven commercial banks was held Thursday at the central bank’s head office, Bangladesh Bank said in a notice to media.
The notice said Sonali Bank, Bank Asia, Eastern Bank, City Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank, Pubali Bank and BRAC Bank PLC have agreed to form the fund using their own surplus liquidity. The 41-billion-taka package draws on scheduled banks’ surplus liquidity as part of a broader 600-billion-taka combined financing initiative aimed at boosting the economy, creating jobs, diversifying exports and supporting the productive sector.
Of this financing, 20 billion taka will go toward a pre-financing scheme to support closed industrial and service-sector enterprises, 5 billion taka to the CMSME sector, 3 billion taka to export diversification, 10 billion taka to a refinancing scheme for the agriculture and rural sector aimed at boosting agricultural output and creating jobs to ensure the country’s food security, and 3 billion taka toward building a special agro-based economic zone in northern Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Bank said that, alongside increasing agricultural production to meet the food needs of the country’s growing population, the fund will finance various income-generating activities in rural areas. The scheme is expected to help create jobs and reduce poverty. Under the scheme, loans can be taken for crop and produce cultivation, agricultural equipment, fisheries and livestock, and various rural income-generating activities. According to the Bangladesh Bank notice, a customer can take a loan or investment of up to 3 million taka for crop cultivation. The ceiling is 2 million taka for agricultural equipment, up to 1.5 million taka for other rural loans including income-generating activities, and up to 10 million taka for fisheries and livestock. Special provisions are also in place for small, marginal and sharecropping farmers, who can individually take loans or investments of up to 500,000 taka for crop cultivation without any collateral, with only the crop produced serving as security against the loan.
Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governors Dr. Md Kabir Ahmed and Md Sarwar Hossain, Executive Director Md Enamul Karim Khan and officials of the relevant departments attended the signing ceremony. Md Abdul Mannan, director of Bangladesh Bank’s Supervisory Data Management and Analytics Department, signed on behalf of the central bank, along with the managing directors of the participating banks.
At the event, Deputy Governor Dr. Md Kabir Ahmed highlighted the fund’s importance and its wide-ranging role. “The main goal of this initiative is to channel this 41-billion-taka fund, built from banks’ surplus liquidity, into productive and priority sectors, while also ensuring comparatively affordable financing through pre-financing and refinancing,” he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report