Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Monday instructed all banks to give agriculture loan at 4 percent interest rate aimed to boost crop production to overcome the possible COVID-19 impact.
“There is an instruction to the scheduled banks to distribute loans at 4 percent interest to the farmers for cultivating import alternative crops (pulses, oil seeds, spices and maize),” as per a BB circular issued here on Monday.
Now, the central bank asked banks to distribute loans at 4 percent interest for all grains, including paddy and wheat, as mentioned in the Agriculture and Rural Credit Policy and Programme.
The scheduled banks will receive 5 percent interest-loss from the Bangladesh Bank against their disbursed loan amount, the circular added. To this end, the central bank has formed a scheme on ‘providing agriculture loan at 4 percent interest rate in crop sector to mitigate the crisis due to novel coronavirus’. The tenure of the scheme is April 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021.
