The credit disbursement for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) increased by 21.60 per cent in the first nine months of 2017 compared to the corresponding period of the last year, according to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data.
"The growth of SME loan disbursement witnessed upward trends as the central bank has strengthened further its monitoring and supervision over the SME loan disbursement activities of the banks and financial institutions (FIs)," a BB senior official told BSS here today.
All banks and FIs have already disbursed Tk 1.23 trillion loan in January-September period in 2017 which was Tk 218.54 trillion up compared to the same period in 2016, reports BSS.
Banks and FIs have already disbursed 91.93 per cent of their SME loan target in the year while the disbursement rate was 89.15 per cent in the corresponding period in previous year.
BB had set Tk 1.34 trillion loan disbursement target for 2017 which was Tk 1.14 trillion in 2016.
Additional Managing Director of the Mutual Trust Bank (MTB) M Hashem Chowdhury said SMEs have already become the most powerful and sustainable pillars of Bangladesh economy, covering both non-traditional manufacturing and service sectors.
"Bangladesh Bank is also working relentlessly towards the development of the sector to achieve higher GDP growth" he added.
According to the BB data, FIs have shown better performance than the commercial banks as the FIs disbursed Tk 63.90 billion till September which was Tk 20.11 billion or 45.92 per cent up compared to corresponding period in the previous year.
During January-September period, commercial banks disbursed Tk 1.17 trillion which was Tk 198.31 billion or 20.48 per cent up compared the same period of the previous year.
Banks and FIs have disbursed Tk 296 billion loans in the manufacturing sector, Tk 158 trillion in the service sector and Tk 777.1814 billion in the trade sector.
A total of 558,566 manufacturing, service and trade organisations received the loans till September 2017.