Credit volume in Turkey’s agriculture sector exceeds 120 billion liras

ISTANBUL

The total of loans granted to the agricultural sector increased 14 billion Turkish Liras ($1.9 billion) between January and August, according to the country’s banking watchdog data.

The credit stock of the agricultural activities passed 120 billion liras ($15.8 billion), the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) figures showed on Sept. 20.

The figure includes diesel fuel, fertilizer, pesticide, seed, seedling, forage and equipment loans, as well as special credit cards for farmers.

Agricultural loans of 81 billion liras ($10.7 billion) are medium and long-term liabilities, whereas the non-performing agricultural loan volume is around 5.3 billion ($701.2 million).

State-owned lender Ziraat has approved agricultural loans worth 258 billion liras, said Ferhat Pişmaf, head of the bank’s agricultural banking marketing group.

“As of the end of August, we have 685,000 producers using credits worth over 73.4 billion liras [$9.7 billion],” he said, adding that a third of those loans consists of investment credits and the rest of them of working capital loans.

Non-performing loans rate in the agricultural sector is around 1.8 percent, well below the average in the entire banking sector, said Pişmaf.

With the support of the Treasury and Finance Ministry, the bank provides interest-free loans for several agricultural products in a bid to cushion the adverse effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Turkish banking sector’s overall credit volume increased by over 15.1 billion liras ($2 billion) in the week of Sept. 4-11, according to the BDDK.

The total credit volume of Turkish banks has surpassed 3.5 trillion liras ($463.1 billion).
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