In a launching ceremony of ‘Youth Business and Agri-loans scheme’ held on January 24, 2023 at Islamabad, the Governor, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Jameel Ahmed said that the tentative target of agricultural loans was likely to be set at around Rs 1,819 billion for the coming financial year 2023-24, considerably higher than the disbursement target of Rs 1,419 billion for the current year ending June 2023.
The Governor said that around 64 percent of the total population in the country consisted of young people aged up to 30 years and expressed his determination to make the country’s youth “economically independent”. He also informed that the government and the State Bank had designed a program for the youth loan scheme, which included the special efforts of Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar
He said that transparency and easy processing were an important part of this program so that more and more people could benefit from it. He told that under this scheme, a target of Rs 30 billion had been set for loans in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the agriculture sector.
The Governor informed that a loan up to Rs 500,000 would be obtained without any pre-condition of furnishing guarantee. Till now, 14,600 applications had been received through this scheme in which there was a demand for loans worth Rs 17 billion.
The Governor said that in this regard, instructions had been issued to provide timely loans to women for their “economic empowerment”.
Source: IBP