CBN Disburses N631.4bn To 3.107m Small Farmers
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disbursed a total of N631.4 billion to 3.107m smallholder farmers to cultivate 3.8 million hectares of land under the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP).
At the Monetary Policy Committee meeting of the CBN held in Abuja on Tuesday, the MPC stated that for the Agri-Business Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Schemes (AGSMEIS), N111.7 billion credit was granted to 29,026 beneficiaries
while Credit Facility, totaling N253.4 billion went to 548,345 beneficiaries – comprising 470,969 households and 77,376 SMEs.
CBN noted that all these helped in boosting output, while the apex bank said it would continue to aggressively increase its interventions in these subsectors, including agricultural processing and manufacturing.
Under the National Youth Investment Fund, N2.04 billion was disbursed to 7,057 beneficiaries, of which 4,411 were individuals and 2,646 were SMEs.
Under the Creative Industry Financing Initiative, the CBN has also disbursed N3.19 billion to 341 beneficiaries across movie production, movie distribution, music, and software development while under the N1 trillion Real Sector Intervention, N856.3 billion had been disbursed for 233 real sector projects, of which 77 are in light manufacturing, 36 in agro-based industry, 30 in services and 11 in mining.
According to the MPC, under the N100 billion Healthcare Support Intervention fund, N97.4 billion has been disbursed for 91 health care projects, of which 26 are pharmaceutical and 65 hospital services. Also, N232.5 million has been disbursed to 5 beneficiaries under the CBN Health Care Grant for Research on Covid-19 and Lassa Fever. Under the National Mass Metering program, N35.9 13 Classified as Confidential billion has been disbursed to 9 DisCos for the acquisition of 656,752 electricity meters.
The apex bank added that the Nigerian Electricity Stabilization Facility 2 (NEMSF-2), N93.8 billion has also been disbursed to 11 DisCos. The Committee members applauded Government’s efforts in combating the headwinds imposed by the Pandemic and urged that going forward, Government should avoid an entire nationwide lockdown like was experienced in 2020, as this will reverse the wholesome gains jointly achieved between the Government and the Central Bank in response to the outbreak of the Pandemic. The MPC carefully assessed the options on the direction of policy in the short to medium term.
It also re-appraised current measures by the Government to purchase COVID-19 vaccines and the general preparedness of relevant public health agencies to guard against the spread of the mutating strains of the virus. To this end, the Committee noted the appropriate steps taken by the Government to ensure that up to 70 percent of the populace get vaccinated to drastically drive down the infection rate in the country and hence, sustain economic activities.
The Committee noted the persisting security crisis, especially in major food-producing regions of the country, and the severe toll on food supply and prices and call on the Government to intensify efforts towards addressing the security situation in the country to ease supply bottlenecks and bring down food prices.
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