KARACHI: The agriculture loans have soared up from Rs257.09 billion to Rs290.35 billion at the end of fiscal year 2013 in June, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance was informed in a meeting.
Sources said that the government had set the target of Rs500 billion for 2014-15 which is 54 percent of the agri credit needs for the FY 2014-15.
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Senior official of Finance Ministry, Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have informed the meeting that access to agriculture financing remain restricted as a total of Rs391 billion was disbursed by the banks against agriculture credit demand of Rs790 billion for 2013-14.
As many as 2.2 million borrowers have been tapped by banks against a total of 8.3 million farm households in the country. The committee has conveyed the officials to inform them about the measures taken to improve credit disbursement between rural and urban areas of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the government has allowed sugar mills to export 500,000 MT sugar as per the terms and conditions.
Accordingly, the State Bank of Pakistan has advised authorized dealers (ADs) to process the export of sugar cases as per following mechanism. The ADs will forward the requests of Sugar Mills through their respective Departmental /Business/Group Heads to the Director, Exchange Policy Department, State Bank of Pakistan, Karachi for approval quoting the reference of the circular letter along with the attested / authenticated copies of the documents including clearance issued by the concerned Cane Commissioner to the effect that concerned sugar mill has cleared outstanding arrears of the growers, sugar export contract; E-Form and Irrevocable L/C or advance payment voucher, swift message and reporting schedule/credit advice, as the case may be.
