The Executive Director of Bank of Industry (BoI), Corporate Services, Tobin Jonathan, has revealed that the bank has disbursed a total of N81 billion loans last year out of a financing gap estimated at $800 million,
He disclosed this in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital over weekend, at the on-going 26th edition of the seminar organized by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for finance correspondents and Business Editors. Contributing to the topic:“ Incentivizing lending to boost employment- elastic sectors of the economy,”
Jonathan said that the BoI, as a government agency established primarily to lend to businesses that boost the nation’s industrial capacity, secured an Afreximbank syndicated loan of $750 million, adding that the syndicated loan secured with the assistance of Afreximbank and backed by the CBN, was deployed by the bank in deepening support for the economy.
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He also disclosed that the BOI’s total loans to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in 2017 was N81 billion, while N23 billion loans was disbursed in the first nine months of this year.
The BoI had stated last year that it disbursed about N66 billion to hundreds of SMEs in 2016.
In his contribution to the topic, Executive Director (Technical) Nigeria Incentive- Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, (NIRSAL) – an arm of the CBN established to de-risk investment in the agriculture value chain, Mr. Babajide Arowosafe, said the agency had helped facilitate a total of N78 billion for the agricultural value chain.
Arowasafe said that NIRSAL was an active player in the CBN Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) window for intervention , adding that the agency provided over N30 billion within a short span of its existence to smallholder farmers.