You may know that to encourage and accelerate the sustainable growth and green manufacturing industry, the government has established refinancing scheme of an amount of BDT5,000 crore, titled the “Green Transformation fund”. This scheme extends long-term loans with maximum interest rate of 5%. Bangladesh Bank issued a circular (SFD circular no-07) dated December 7, 2022 regarding this fund. Under the scheme, factories can avail 70% of costs of letters of credit against their required (machinery) imports as loans. A factory can take maximum BDT 200 crore loan from this fund. Factories will get this loan facility for water efficiency in wet processing, water conservation and management, waste management, resource efficiency and recycling, renewable energy, energy efficiency, heat and temperature management, ventilation and wind flow efficiency, working environment improvement initiatives and other areas.
Another financial scheme of Bangladesh Bank is “Technology Development Fund” of BDT1,000 crore. This has formed to provide cheap loans to 100% export-oriented industries to upgrade technologies they currently use (Bangladesh Bank SFD circular No-02, dated January 17,2021). The tenure ranges from 3 years to 10 years. The interest rate for a borrower depends on the tenue, e.g. 5% for less than five years, 5.5% for between 5 years and less than 8 years, and 6 % for more than 8 years to 10 years. Borrowers can also enjoy a maximum of 1 year grace period. Under this scheme, exporters can get the loan for replacing outdated machinery, adopting technology for renewable energy and upgrading of machinery used in business operations and waste management which are absolutely crucial to remain competitive in the global market as well as to make business sustainable.
Having sustainability at the core of our strategic vision where resource efficiency and carbon neutrality will be the key to future business, I think these financing schemes will be quite useful for us. Also, the use of modern technologies are predominant when it comes to enhancing productivity, improving quality and overall competitiveness.
