N26bn: Agric, SMEs equity funds ready for disbursement, says Bankers Committee

Bankers Committee at its 334th Meeting, said, those interested in accessing such funds or looking for equity to support their agricultural ventures or small and medium scale enterprises should apply so that the bank will do preliminary review and pass the requests on to the project review committee of the organization.

Bankers committee whose discussion centered on economy and the banking industry, also inaugurated a board of Agric and SMEs Funds.

The Managing Director of Union Bank, Mr Emeka Emuwa said, “one of the things we discussed at the Bankers Committee to further supporting the growth in the economy was, inaugurating the board of Agric and SMEs fund (N26billion), all the banks are supposed to set aside a portion of their profits which would be made available for equity investment in agriculture and SMEs.So the board was inaugurated today-the project review committee of the fund.

“Basically the fund is ready to start implementing. In the course of few weeks, there will be more communication as to how to access those funds. Entrepreneurs, small businesses and agriculture, the opportunity is there for equity funding for their businesses.”

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Also speaking, the Managing Director of FSDH Merchant Bank, Mrs Hamda Ambah, said, “those who are interested in accessing such fund are looking for equity to support their agricultural ventures or small and medium scale enterprises should approach their banks now and apply so that the bank will do sort of preliminary review and pass these requests on to the project review committee of this organization.”

Giving an update on the economic recession, ‎the Director, Banking Supervision, CBN, Mr Ahmed Abdullahi, ‎said, “we have a very strong believe that the Q2 that just passed seen the economy emerging out of recession and there are reasons to believe this. Major non-oil sectors of the economy have witnessed positive growth.

On her part, the Executive Director, Standard Chartered Bank, Mrs. Mobola Fatoye said, “one of the areas that get everyone excited is the foreign exchange market and thanks to the action of the CBN an investors and exporters window was set up in May and it was very interesting when we were going through the meeting today and the statistics was given to us, and fact that so far the volume of trading that has gone on in that market is about $4billion.

“So we think, the things are really going to be looking up, we are very hopeful that we are going in the right direction and we will eventually get a stage where the rate will truly converge and that is where we want to get to.”