KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Dr Reza Baqir on Monday lauded banks for achieving an unprecedented level of agriculture credit disbursement of Rs1.4 trillion in FY21, and announced the current year’s target of Rs1.7 trillion with 5 million borrowers.
The governor marked the insistent need to address quality of credit, its geographical imbalances and uneven distribution amongst different categories of borrowers.
Chairing an annual meeting of Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee (ACAC) in Multan, he appreciated the fact that despite facing the challenges of the pandemic, collective efforts of 50 financial institutions under ACAC guidance helped achieve 91% of assigned target.
The meeting was attended by senior officials of federal and provincial governments, presidents and CEOs of banks, members of provincial chambers of agriculture, farmers, representatives of regional farming communities and SBP senior officials.
He announced two new measures to help boost agriculture financing including a comprehensive scoring model to rank banks according to key agriculture credit indicators and targets to foster a competitive environment and designating a bank volunteering to serve as a lead bank in an underserved province/area.
The banks performing well will be recognised whereas under-performing banks will be encouraged to focus on metrics where improvement is needed.
Further steps in this regard include establishing help desks in under served areas to facilitate farmers, and launching targeted and collaborative awareness drives for an extensive outreach.
Baqir emphasised that banks leadership could now take this journey to the next level of qualitative improvement in agriculture credit in line with the strategic shift and key policy actions taken by SBP.
“SBP’s vision will serve two-fold purposes; enhancing farmers financial inclusion while providing more lending opportunities to the banks,” he said.
This was followed by a presentation on the performance of banks in agricultural financing. The meeting deliberated on the new directions in agricultural financing, particularly the climate smart agriculture practices and the role that financial institutions can play.
The central bank governor especially highlighted the immense agricultural potential of Multan and the opportunities in expanding agriculture finance.
Moreover, the committee also discussed avenues to enhance efficiency of existing agriculture credit infrastructure across the country.
Selected banks and other stakeholders presented ideas in the area of value chain solutions, electronic warehouse receipt financing, digital loan origination system and horticulture value chain financing.
The meeting approved the new ideas and set targets for scaling up pilot projects.
To serve the agriculture sector with integrity, how about holding the current ZTBL president to account for abusing his authority and misuse of power? No one should be allowed to pursue personal vendettas and interests at expense of a state-owned bank. Shahbaz Jamil has taken questionable actions and “breached bank’s own rules and practices” in firing employees, did not follow due process and still no “insaaf” ?!