Pre-shipment credit loan facility extended

The Bangladesh Bank has extended the loan facility of pre-shipment credit refinancing to all export-oriented companies affected by  the Covid-19 pandemic.

A circular issued by the central bank on Thursday said customers will be able to avail loans under the scheme for three years, one year of that having passed already.

In the new directive, the central bank said many customers could not avail the pre-shipment credit loan facility over the last one year, which disrupted their exports.Therefore this directive has been given anew to revive the damaged economy and bring dynamism to foreign exchange earnings.

Depending on the bank-customer relationship, a customer can avail such loans more than once. At the customer level, regardless of the term of the loan, participating banks will be refinanced within a maximum of 180 days of the shipment date of shipment, making them eligible for one-time repayment with interest at the end of the term.

Earlier, a special fund of Tk5,000 crore called a pre-shipment credit refinancing scheme was set up on 13 April last year with a circular issued from the same department.

The maximum loan interest rate at the customer level of this scheme for a period of three years was 6%. This fund will now be open to export-oriented organisations in any sector.