Agricultural Sector Lending - Sejko: New program for small and medium-sized enterprises
The Bank of Albania is organizing a roundtable discussion on the topic "Agricultural Sector Lending: Identifying pathways and creating instruments for qualitative progress in agricultural sector lending".
This roundtable discussion is attended by representatives from the Government, banking system leaders, and representatives of agribusiness companies, who provide a new perspective on the obstacles faced by lending to the agricultural sector and identify the appropriate ways and instruments to address them.
Governor of the Bank of Albania, Gent Sejko: "This roundtable aims to improve the agricultural sector's access to finance. The sector employs 1/3 of the country's workforce and provides 20% of national production. The main problem is the access of this sector to finance. The Albanian economy has had a positive performance in recent years. The Albanian economy has gone from an economy of 10 billion euros in 2014 to an economy of 24 billion euros in 2024. Credit to the private sector increased by 16% in 2024, an increase of 110 billion lek in the loan portfolio.
The agricultural sector has the weakest performance, some problems are fragmentation, lack of collateral, or high lending costs. Credit to the agricultural sector constitutes less than 2% of business credit in the banking sector.
The SME lending program opens a new chapter for lending in the agricultural sector. Although SMEs constitute the backbone, this sector is 4 times less credited than large businesses and corporations. The program offers opportunities for their development in the short term. 25 billion lek will be provided to support micro, small and medium-sized businesses and will reduce the cost of credit for these businesses. The fund will be made available to commercial banks. The program will be accompanied by other schemes.”
The conclusions of this roundtable discussion will serve to build a work agenda that will create the premises for a new approach of the banking sector towards lending to agriculture, enabling a qualitative step in the development of this sector.
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