Bangladesh Bank (BB) has extended again the special loan rescheduling facility by three months for the leather sector entities relocated in Savar Leather Industrial Park considering the second wave of Covid-19 and collection of raw hides during the coming Eid-ul-Azha.
The central bank in a circular on Tuesday said application submission deadline for the special loan rescheduling facility has been extended to September 30 from June 30, 2021.
"We've extended the deadline by three more months as the second wave of Covid-19 has been sweeping the country that also raised concern among the businesses. Besides, lather entities will also collect raw hides during the coming Eid-ul-Azha," said a BB official.
On January 6, 2021, Bangladesh Bank introduced the policy, setting March 31, 2021 as the application submission deadline. On April 12 of this year, the central bank extended the deadline up to June 30, 2021.
The approval of the loan rescheduling or restructuring is subject to payment of two per cent of the outstanding loans prior to the application submission.
The leather sector entities that have already received loan restructure, rescheduling and interest waiver facilities will be considered eligible to get the new exit policy.
The policy also allows banks to waive interest charged on the borrowers.
The leather sector businesses, which will not be able to continue their enterprises, with outstanding loans less then Tk 5 crore will get three years to repay debts while the repayment tenure can be up to five years against the outstanding loans above Tk 5 crore.
Besides, banks are also empowered to sell assets of the borrowers that were pledged as collaterals.
The borrowers, who will be able to continue business, will get up to 10 years repayment tenure, including one year grace period to repay the rescheduled loan.
In 2019, the central bank floated the same rescheduling facility for bank loan defaulters in all sectors on easy terms following a government policy.