ISLAMABAD: State Bank of Pakistan has set a target of agricultural credit for the year 2022-23 at a little over Rs 18 trillion in view of massive losses to agriculture due to unprecedented floods due to historic monsoon rains.
According to media reports, the loan target of 17 trillion rupees could not be achieved last year mainly due to the cautious attitude of financial institutions.
This year the country is under severe pressure due to devastating floods, there is no official data available on the loss of crops, livestock and other related valuables in the agricultural sector, however a brokerage house has initially pegged the loss at Rs 900 billion. Estimated.
However, due to the limited capacity of brokerage houses or independent NGOs to assess potential losses, only the government can provide accurate flood damage data.
At the same time, it is clear that the agricultural sector needs a lot of financial support to recover from the huge losses caused by natural calamities.
Therefore, the State Bank has assigned an annual agricultural loan disbursement target of Rs 18 trillion in the current financial year for financial institutions to meet the demand for agricultural loans.
Additionally, in line with the requirements of National Food Security and the need for mechanization of farms to increase agricultural productivity, Rs. 140 billion for wheat crop production loans, Rs. 45 billion for tractor financing, and harvesting, Specific targets of Rs 20 billion have been set for planting and other agricultural machinery.
Apart from this, the loan limit per acre for agricultural financing has also been increased to help the farming community to get adequate financing from banks and improve their agricultural practices.
In view of the wheat shortage this year, wheat borrowing has been increased by 40 percent per acre, and the country is likely to spend $17 billion on importing 2 million tons of wheat.
In this regard, in a statement, the State Bank said that ‘to ensure food security, the symbolic loan limit for wheat has been increased from the current 60 thousand rupees to 1 lakh rupees, with the help of which farmers can get quality raw materials for better crops. will be able to use’.
The bank said that during the financial year 2022, the financial institutions were able to provide loans of 14 trillion 19 billion rupees to the agricultural sector, compared to which 13 trillion 66 billion rupees were provided during the financial year 2021, while the due agricultural An encouraging growth of over 10 percent was recorded in loans to reach Rs 6 trillion 91 billion by June 2022.
State Bank said the unprecedented distribution and growth in the agricultural credit portfolio was supported by various recent initiatives to promote agricultural credit and financial inclusion in the country.
It added that one of the major recent initiatives of the State Bank was to introduce a comprehensive agricultural credit scoring model to focus banks on improving the quality aspects and regional distribution of agricultural financing in the country.
