Emranul Huq, Managing Director & CEO Dhaka Bank

The financial services of Dhaka Bank are specifically designed for different farming groups to provide them with greater returns from their harvest and guard against exploitation from informal money lenders. The agricultural credit of Dhaka Bank supports families to access financial services, manage and build assets, invest in small enterprises, access employment opportunities, and cope during emergencies. Complementing this, we have built financial literacy and instituted a range of client protection measures.

The large and upper-middle farms are gradually decreasing in Bangladesh giving way to marginal, small, and sharecropping farms, dominating the agrarian structure now. The transformation of this structure indicates a growing need for agricultural credit to sustain the growth in the sector. To cope with the change, we are also changing theAgricultural Credit Policy from time to time.

The special credit program facilitates sharecropping farmers to access agricultural credit. It is expected that the program has contributed to meeting the working capital needs of the sharecropping or even the landless farmers helping them to come out of high-cost informal loans. We disbursed the amount fixed by Bangladesh Bank in 2021 – 2022 in a special agricultural credit program and to help in productivity and profitability.

The Agricultural credit policy is amended every year, and Bangladesh Bank publishes the policies that banks must follow to provide agricultural credit. The agricultural refinance scheme needs to be continued for the betterment of small farmers, and a credit guarantee scheme may be introduced in agricultural credit for their comfort and that of the banks.