The latest data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has indicated that bank loans to the private sector have grown to N42.25tn as at the end of January, 2023.
Investors King reports that in January, 2022, the private sector bank loans were summed up at N35.18tn. This implies an increase of N7.07tn within one year.
Previous records of the CBN’s money and credit statistics stated that in January, 2021, the total bank loans recorded was N30.41tn, and as of January 2020 ending, the figure was N26.65tn.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, in January gave a report of the Monetary Policy Committee, giving the breakdown of various loan interventions offered to the people.
According to him, the bank credit disbursed was to increase production in different sectors which will in turn improve the country’s economy.
Some of the loan interventions mentioned were; “Between September and October 2022, under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, the bank disbursed N41.02bn to several agricultural projects, bringing the cumulative disbursements under the programme to N1.07tn to over 4.6 million smallholder farmers cultivating or rearing 21 commodities across the country.
“The bank also released N300m to finance large-scale agricultural projects under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme, bringing the total disbursements under the scheme to N745.31bn for 680 projects in agro-production and agro-processing.
“In addition, the bank released the sum of N48.30bn under the N1.0tn real sector facility to seven new real sector projects in agriculture, manufacturing, and services. The cumulative disbursements under the real sector facility currently stood at N2.15tn, disbursed to 437 projects across the country, comprising 240 in manufacturing, 91 in agriculture, 93 in services and 13 mining sector projects,” he said.
Speaking further, the CBN governor said that N20.78bn bank loans were disbursed to aid nine projects that cut across health, manufacturing and services under the 100for100 Policy on Production and Productivity.
With this, the loan interventions on healthcare, manufacturing, services and agriculture amounted to N114.17bn to cater for 71 projects.
Emefiele further explained that N4bn intervention fund was issued for National Gas Expansion Programme, while for entrepreneurship development, under the Agribusiness/Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme and Micro, Small; a total sum of N150.22bn was released and for Medium Enterprise Development Fund, a cumulative sum of N96.08bn was disbursed to support entrepreneurs.
