PTI government makes unprecedented economic achievement for the first time in the history of country
Shares
KARACHI: *PTI government makes unprecedented economic achievement for the first time in the history of country,*State Bank of Pakistan Governor Dr Reza Baqir has revealed.
“It is for the first time in Pakistan’s history that credit to the agriculture sector has surpassed Rs1 trillion,” said the governor while chairing the annual meeting of the Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee (ACAC) in Peshawar.
Dr Baqir, however, urged the banks to enhance their efforts to achieve qualitative aspects of the assigned targets, in line with the strategic shift and key policy actions taken by SBP regarding agricultural financing.
He highlighted that most of the banks met their assigned targets except for some, including Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL), Punjab Provincial Cooperative Bank Limited PPCBL, few domestic private banks and Islamic banks.
The province-wise agriculture credit disbursement witnessed double-digit growth across all regions; however, the banks struggled to achieve their assigned targets in the underserved regions.
Dr Baqir urged the agriculture lending banks and institutions to scale up their efforts and commitment to ensure achievement of agriculture credit target in the underserved provinces and regions.
The governor apprised the committee that SBP was considering three policy actions to further promote financial inclusion in the agriculture sector.
“First, enhancing transparency through disclosure of bank-wise performance statistics on a monthly basis covering agriculture credit disbursement, geographic distribution, outstanding amount, number of borrowers, and agriculture credit infrastructure.
“Second, introducing a comprehensive scoring model for ranking of banks against key agriculture credit indicators and targets. Third, introducing incentives and penalties based on performance scores of banks.”
Dr Baqir’s address was followed by a presentation wherein the performance of banks on agricultural financing was reviewed against their targets during FY19. While assigning the agriculture credit target for FY20, it was shared that the overall disbursement target of Rs1,350 billion has been assigned to banks which was 89pc of the total estimated agriculture credit requirement of Rs1,518 billion.