Bangladesh Bank yesterday extended the relaxed loan repayment facility for shipbuilders in a bid to help the industry tackle adversities derived from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
As per the central bank decision, shipbuilders will get another two-year moratorium to pay back bank loans.
In April 2018, Bangladesh Bank relaxed the loan repayment facility for the shipbuilding industry, allowing them to pay the loans spanning 10 years with a grace period of three years.
On top of that, they had managed an exemption of providing any down payment to reschedule bad loans.
The three-year moratorium was supposed to end in 2020.
However, the central bank has now extended the moratorium period by another two years, given that they paid 5 per cent of their total loan instalments payable last year.
Bangladesh Bank issued the notice as per instructions from the finance ministry, according to a central bank notice.
A central bank official said the shipbuilding industry fell into crisis once again since 2020, soon after the business slowdown was brought on by the coronavirus pandemic .
For this reason, the relaxed facility given to shipbuilders has not created any effectiveness in the wake of the pandemic.
Against this backdrop, the finance ministry further extended the relaxed loan facility to the moribund shipbuilding industry.
(TDS)