BoC concessions for rice millers

Uditha Kumarasinghe

COLOMBO: In a bid to overcome the problems affecting rice mill owners, the Government has decided to give several concessions to rice mill owners to re-start their ventures and encourage local rice processing.

Following guidelines given by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Bank of Ceylon (BoC) has decided to completely write off the loans of small and medium scale rice mill owners who have already paid 75 per cent of the total amount of their loan, BoC Chairman Udayasri Kariyawasam said.

The BoC has given this special concession to small and medium scale rice mill owners who have obtained loans from the BoC to purchase paddy from 1997 to 2000.

Due to various reasons, these rice mill owners have not been able to repay their loans. Having considered the situation, President Rajapaksa instructed the BoC to formulate a systematic programme to provide immediate relief measures to these rice mill owners, he said.

He said the BoC has made arrangements to give another Pledge Loan maximum up to Rs.one million to these rice mill owners who have completely released from their loan commitments to re-start their business ventures.

As another relief measure, the BoC under a concessionary loan scheme has also decided to re-vest the properties which were taken over the by Bank to rice mill owners.

"This has provided an opportunity to rice mill owners to re-start the milling of paddy. The Government has given priority to increase both local rice production and rice consumption," he said.

Kariyawasam said in order to encourage the production of rice flour based products, the BoC has initiated a special concessionary loan scheme

"Govi Shakthi" to rice mill owners to purchase machinery. The Government will provide these machinery tax free. In addition, a five year tax exemption has been given.

Under the Govi Shakthi loan scheme, BoC will give credit amounting to Rs.one million to farmers to purchase agriculture equipment and two wheeled and four wheeled tractors.

Meanwhile, the BoC has introduced another credit scheme for the benefit of farmers and small scale businessmen which will provide a Rs.250,000 loan to develop their industries.

Under this loan scheme, BoC has granted Rs.238 million worth loans to 4,400 people during the past four months.

Seventy per cent of these loans have been given to agriculture related industries, he said.

The E-Friends credit scheme introduced by the BoC will also grant loans up to Rs.10 million to entrepreneurs to commence various industries.