The State Bank''s 2016 financing targets for SMEs have been achieved, according to figures released by the central bank. The targets, which the State Bank had introduced on January 1, 2016, were based on the sizes of the banks/DFIs in terms of their assets, branch networks and existing SME finance portfolios, and their capacity to achieve their respective targets. The outstanding target was achieved by December.

The 32 percent growth of SME financing of banks and DFIs reached Rs401 billion during the 2016 calendar year, against the actual targets of Rs397.86 billion set by the State Bank. On a year on year basis, SME financing of banks and DFIs shows an increase of Rs96 billion or around 32 percent when compared with SME financing portfolio of Rs305 billion on December 31, 2015 to Rs401 billion on December 13, 2016. The public sector banks and Islamic banks respectively achieved 117 percent 112 percent of the targets. The private sector banks achieved 96 percent and DFIs achieved 73 percent target.

The Islamic banks'' SME financing surged to Rs23.91 billion, against the target of Rs21.40 billion by the end of CY16. The growth in public sector banks was primarily led by the National Bank and the Bank of Punjab. The public sector banks'' SME financing reached Rs101.36 billion by the end of December 2016, compared to the target of Rs87 billion. Overall SME financing of private sector banks was Rs265.12 and DFIs Rs8.8 billion, respectively.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017