Farm loans at 4% concessional interest

Bangladesh Bank on Sunday asked banks to strengthen loan disbursement activities under four percent concessional interest for cultivating import alternative crops - oilseeds, pulses, maize and spice crops.

The central bank issued a notice on the day saying that the banks would have to encourage farmers to get the loans under the subsidy.

There has been a shortage of various consumer goods especially edible oil at the domestic market with most of the commodity prices rising which prompted the central bank to issue such a notice.

The BB said in its notice import cost had increased due to price hike of various commodities at the international market and the transportation costs also increased because of unrest in the global economy triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

There needs to be increase in production of edible oil producing crops in order to maintain supply of import-dependent edible oil at the market in future, BB said.

The import alternative crops under the four percent concessional interest loan are oilseeds, mustard, sesame, linseed, groundnut, sunflower, soybean; pulses - mung bean, lentils, khesari, gram, pea, masakalai, arahar; spice crops-ginger, garlic, onion, chili, turmeric, cumin; and maize.

The prices of edible oil have gone up at the wholesale level in recent time despite the 30 percent tax exemption at the import and production stages.

Recent supply crunch forced the government to increase the prices of the bottled soybean oil by Tk38 per litre to Tk198, loose soybean oil to Tk180 per litre and palm oil to Tk172 per litre on May 6.