Banks disburse Rs664bn under agriculture loans: SBP

December 23, 2022 (MLN): Banks have disbursed agriculture credit of Rs664 billion in 5MFY23, however government has sets the target of Rs1,819bn for FY23 to recover from devastation of floods, the Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Mr. Jameel Ahmed said whilw chairing the meeting of Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee (ACAC) on Friday.

To note, in FY22 the government has disbursed Rs1,1419bn as Agriculture loans.

During the meeting, he referred to the devastation caused by recent floods and observed that climate change is the biggest long-term threat to the country due to its unforeseen impacts.

“While the government, businesses and societies are recognizing such threats, we need to take timely actions and allocate required resources for research and development of relevant products and services and capacity building of stakeholders to address them preemptively”, he added.

He further added that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced the Kissan Package, which comprised of restructuring and rescheduling of agriculture loans, mark-up waiver for outstanding small loans in flood affected areas.

In addition, PM announced an interest-free loans for subsistence & landless farmers and subsidized loans and risk sharing scheme for farm mechanization, besides other support measures.

The package will facilitate recovery of farmers from the impact of recent floods and urged banks to implement the package in letter and spirit, and assured SBP’s full support to the banks wherever needed, Mr. Jameel elaborated.

The Governor also underlined that banks have a huge opportunity to exploit the untapped potential of Islamic agriculture financing with respect to SBP’s recent commitment towards transformation of conventional banking to Islamic banking in the next five years.

“The share of Islamic financing in agriculture financing is still quite low and urged the industry to work on developing demand driven Islamic financing products, specifically tailored to the requirements of the farming community”, he noted.

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