The investment in the banking sector is around Rs 2 lakh crore in two sectors. And between these two sectors there is about 1 lakh 15 thousand crore in the readymade garment sector and about 75 thousand crore in the textile sector. Due to the outbreak of coronavirus, the recovery of bank loans has almost stopped since last March. According to the bankers, Bangladesh Bank has imposed a relaxation on loan repayment from January to next September.
It has been said that even if the loan is not repaid, no one can be defaulted. Due to this, the traders are not being pressured to collect the loan from the bank. As a result, the bank’s cash collection has declined at an alarming rate. But on the contrary, the depositors are struggling to pay back the profits as per their demand, pay the salaries and allowances of the officers and employees, and pay various utility bills including building rent. As a result, the ability of banks to reinvest is declining day by day.
Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer of Mutual Trust Bank, said yesterday that as far as they know, Corona has had the biggest impact on the readymade garments and textile sectors. In some cases, orders from foreign buyers have been suspended. Again in some cases it has been canceled. They are getting such information from various entrepreneurs. But all the entrepreneurs are not showing much interest in repaying the loan from March.
This is because it has been relaxed for entrepreneurs to repay loans from Bangladesh Bank first from January to June, then from September. Usually if a customer did not repay the loan, he would be defaulted after a certain period of time. And if he is a defaulter, he does not get new loan facility. If the customer repays the loan, the bank reinvests it in another customer.
But the reality is that no debt has been recovered since last March. Again, due to the decline in people’s income due to the corona, new deposits are not available. In addition, many are breaking down small savings due to hardship. As a result, the inflow of bank money has decreased. But the outflow has increased. This has emerged as a major problem for the bank. He said that the existing transactions are being done with the collection and collection of deposits. But most of the banks are not able to reinvest.
According to a statistic of Bangladesh Bank, the bank has invested around Tk 200,000 crore in the readymade garments and textile sectors among the sector-based loans. Out of this two lakh crore taka, the defaulted debt is about 20 thousand crore taka, which is about 10 percent of the total debt of the two sectors. This calculation is from last December.
