Bangladesh’s central bank, the Bangladesh Bank (BB), has taken initiative to ensure finance to micro, small and medium enterprises operating in clusters in the country.
As per reports, the BB recently asked banks to lend to 19 types of clusters giving the highest priority to garments, agricultural processing, manufacture of agricultural machinery and ICT even if it also directed the banks to give the highest priority to clusters of leather and leather goods makers, light engineering and jute and jute goods as well.
The move by the central bank comes as small and medium firms operating in clusters are allegedly not getting sufficient attention of bankers although the firms need the finance to grow and compete in the domestic and export markets.This gap in lending to small businesses prevailed as there was no definite definition of clusters of the SMEs.
The central bank has, reportedly,has categorised clusters into two types — most priority clusters and priority clusters — even as it directed banks and financial institutions to fix targets.
