Agricultural Credit Bank Suggests Different Loan Exemption Schemes

The Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit has set different options for exempting 44,000 farmers from repaying loans amounting to EGP 107 million.

The bank will send these options to the Cabinet by next week to be submitted to the Egyptian President in order to release an official decree exempting the farmers from repaying their debts to the bank, said Mohsen El-Batran, chairman of the bank.

The non-performing loan portfolio of the investment sector registered EGP 1.080 billion, while that of the agricultural sector registered only EGP 93 million after exempting farmers from EGP 167 million of their debts.

The state incurred about EGP 107 million owed by 44,000 farmers as each one owed about EGP 10,000, in addition to incurring 50% or 59 million of the debts owed by people of Sinai.

The bank is currently preparing a study to dispose of the rest of the bad debts through dividing them into different segments as follows: from EGP 15,000 to EGP 20,000 segment, from EGP 20,000 to EGP 30,000 segment and from EGP 30,000 to EGP 40,000 segment. The bank will provide different solutions suitable for each segment.