Private sector gets N42tn bank loans - Report

Banks credit to the private sector rose from N35.18tn recorded at the end of January 2022 to N42.25tn in the corresponding period of 2023, figures obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria have shown.

The CBN’s money and credit statistics indicated this amounts to a rise of N7.07tn in the one-year period.

The figures also showed that total credit rose to N30.41tn as of the end of January 2021 from N26.65tn at the end of January 2022.

While delivering the Monetary Policy Committee report in January, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said the committee reviewed the performance of the bank’s various interventions aimed at stimulating production and productivity across the real sector.

He said, “Between September and October 2022, under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, the bank disbursed N41.02bn to several agricultural projects, bringing the cumulative disbursements under the programme to N1.07tn to over 4.6 million smallholder farmers cultivating or rearing 21 commodities across the country.

“The bank also released N300m to finance large-scale agricultural projects under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme, bringing the total disbursements under the scheme to N745.31bn for 680 projects in agro-production and agro-processing.

“In addition, the bank released the sum of N48.30bn under the N1.0tn real sector facility to seven new real sector projects in agriculture, manufacturing, and services.

He said the cumulative disbursements under the real sector facility currently stood at N2.15tn, disbursed to 437 projects across the country, comprising 240 in manufacturing, 91 in agriculture, 93 in services and 13 mining sector projects.

Under the 100for100 Policy on Production and Productivity, he said the bank had disbursed N20.78bn to nine projects in healthcare, manufacturing, and services.

This brought the cumulative adisbursements under the facility to N114.17bn, disbursed to 71 projects across healthcare, manufacturing, services and agriculture.

Emefiele added, “The bank released N4bn under the Intervention Facility for the National Gas Expansion Programme to promote the adoption of compressed natural gas as the preferred fuel for transportation and liquefied petroleum gas as the preferred cooking fuel.

“In the MSME sector, the bank supported entrepreneurship development with the disbursement of the sums of N1.33bn and N10m under the Agribusiness/Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Development Fund, respectively, to support entrepreneurship development in the country, bringing the total disbursement under the interventions to N150.22bn and N96.08bn, respectively.”

Under the Export Facilitation Initiative, he said, the bank funded export-oriented projects with N5.34bn, bringing the cumulative disbursement under the intervention to N44.58bn.