Country’s jute and jute goods exporters have not been getting credit facility from scheduled banks for last one year due to mounting default loans, official sources said.
Officials of Bank and Financial Institution Division said the amount of jute exporters’ default loan in commercial banks increased from Tk3,000 crore to Tk4,500 crore in last six years.
Bangladesh Jute Goods Association Chairman Mohammad Zakirul Islam sent a letter to Finance Minister AMA Muhith last week and urged him to immediately take necessary measures for providing export credit facility for jute goods exporters.
He wrote: “Honest jute exporters are being deprived of credit facility as scheduled banks are not interested to provide them with loan after some unscrupulous businessmen have become loan defaulters in scheduled banks.”
“A vested group has also lobbied against jute goods exporters so that they do not get credit facility from the banks.”
The chairman claimed that 60% of local jute goods exporters had opened letters of credit and met their export expenses from their own fund.
“It takes 16 days for the exporters to get back money from abroad. So, we badly need export credit facility from scheduled banks,” he added.
In the letter, the finance minister has recommended that Bangladesh Bank should take necessary steps for providing credit facility again to jute goods exporters and find the causes of delay in reaching the exporters’ earnings to their bank accounts from abroad.
Country’s jute and jute goods exports decreased drastically in the fiscal year 2013-14 following depreciation of Indian rupee and sluggish demand in the world market.
As per data of Export Promotion Bureau, the export earnings declined by more than 30% during the period. The country earned nearly $592 million in July–January period in the current fiscal year against $646 million in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.
Millers and exporters said India used to buy about 55-60% of the total raw jute exports of Bangladesh and it cut the level of its imports from the country that accelerated the fall in jute exports.
Iran, another raw jute importer, had also slashed buying jute due to economic sanctions imposed by the western countries, they said.
In addition, the prevailing sour relations with Pakistan and instability in Syria, Libya, and Iraq which are traditionally jute and jute goods importers, had caused a decline in exports.
Source: dhaka tribune
