Lending is starting under a Tk 41,000 crore financing package, built from scheduled banks' surplus liquidity, to boost production, investment and employment. Bangladesh Bank has initially signed agreements with seven banks for this purpose.

The signing took place at Bangladesh Bank's head office on Thursday, 20 August.

The seven banks are Sonali Bank PLC, Bank Asia PLC, Eastern Bank PLC, City Bank PLC, Dutch-Bangla Bank PLC, Pubali Bank PLC and BRAC Bank PLC.

Bangladesh Bank said a combined financing initiative of Tk 60,000 crore in total has been taken to give momentum to the economy, create jobs, diversify exports and support productive sectors. As part of it, five financing packages worth Tk 41,000 crore have been formed from scheduled banks' surplus liquidity.

They are:

• Tk 20,000 crore for a pre-financing scheme to support closed industries and the service sector;
• Tk 10,000 crore for the refinancing scheme for the agriculture and rural sector;
• Tk 5,000 crore for a working capital refinancing fund for the CMSME sector;
• Tk 3,000 crore for export diversification;
• Tk 3,000 crore for setting up an agriculture-based special economic centre in north Bengal.

Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governors Dr Md Kabir Ahammad and Md Sarwar Hossain, Executive Director Md Enamul Karim Khan and directors and officials of the departments concerned attended the signing.

Md Abdul Mannan, director of the Supervisory Data Management and Analytics Department, signed on behalf of Bangladesh Bank, and the managing directors of the participating banks signed for their banks.

Deputy Governor Dr Md Kabir Ahammad said the main aim of the initiative is to channel banks' surplus liquidity into productive and priority sectors and to ensure relatively affordable finance through pre-financing and refinancing.

He said Bangladesh Bank expects the participating banks to play an important role in raising production, investment and employment in the economy.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.