Banks’ Credit To Economy Now N24.23trn

The total credit from the banking sector to the economy rose to N24.23tn as of the end of May, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, disclosed on Tuesday.

Speaking at the end of the two-day meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee in Abuja, he said, “Accordingly, aggregate credit at end-May 2021 stood at N24.23tn, compared with N22.68tn at end-December 2020. This represents a year-to date increase of N1.55tn.”

He said under the bank’s development finance initiatives, it granted N756.51bn to 3,734,938 smallholder farmers cultivating 4.6 million hectares of land, of which N120.24bn was extended for the 2021 wet season to 627,051 farmers for 847,484 hectares of land, under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.

He said for the Agribusiness/Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme, N121.57bn was disbursed to 32,617 beneficiaries.

Emefiele added that for the Targeted Credit Facility, N318.17bn was released to 679,422 beneficiaries, comprising 572,189 households and 107,233 Small and Medium-scale Enterprises.

He said under the National Youth Investment Fund, the bank released N3bn to 7,057 beneficiaries, of which 4,411 were individuals and 2,646 SMEs.

According to him, under the Creative Industry Financing Initiative, N3.22bn was disbursed to 356 beneficiaries across movie production, movie distribution, software development, fashion, and IT verticals.

He said under the N1tn real sector facility, the bank released N923.41bn to 251 real sector projects, of which 87 were in light manufacturing, 40 in agro-based industry, 32 in services and 11 in mining.

Emefiele said from the N100bn Healthcare Sector Intervention Facility, N98.41bn was disbursed for 103 health care projects, of which 26 were pharmaceuticals and 77 were in the hospital services.

He said N232.54m was disbursed to five beneficiaries under the CBN Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention (Grant) Scheme for the development of testing kits and devices for COVID-19 and Lassa fever.

He said under the National Mass Metering Programme, N36.04bn was disbursed to 17 meter asset providers and nine distribution companies for the procurement and installation of 657,562 electricity meters.

Emefiele said that under the Nigerian Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility 2, the CBN released N120.29bn to 11 Discos to provide liquidity support and stimulate critical infrastructure investment needed to improve service delivery and collection efficiency.