SME opportunities will help country's growth

The country will grow rapidly within the next few years as there are many opportunities for small entrepreneurs to grow, said Vice President SME and Specialised Commercial Markets, NDB Bank, Raj Aboobucker.

He said that when the economy grows the SME sector too will grow rapidly and in time to come they will be large entrepreneurs.

Raj Aboobucker Pic: Chinthaka Kumarasinghe

The SME sector will be the growth engine of the future. Aboobucker said that the bank moved to the North last year and there was a huge change in the business spectrum. Local entrepreneurs will benefit largely while the Governments decision to promote SME's was a step in the right direction.

Achieving double digit growth is now possible though it was a dream earlier. He said that there is immense potential for fisheries, agriculture tourism and dairy farming in the North and the East though there is potential for dairy farming progress is slow.

Though the NDB Bank moved to Jaffna only in October last year some of the main small hotels have been funded by the bank and we will continue to partner with the entrepreneurs of the North and the East to ensure a rapid economic progress, he said.

Already the bank is a partner with Saubagya, Pibidena Uthura re-financing schemes of the Central Bank, and the NDB bank will collaborate with the Central bank in new credit lines as well.

The Divi Aruna loan scheme was launched by the bank targeting the poorest of the poor who are skilled but lacks finances.

In the event a person doesn't have the finances the bank will give a loan in addition to providing them with other information.

When the bank was set up in 1980 their main concern and priority was lending for projects and initially, it was financing of large projects. He said that the bank played an apex role in credit line re-financing.

From the day the bank opened up to now we have disbursed Rs. 32 bln. In 1996 NDB started the first branch in Negombo.

This was our foray into the SME banking. By 2004 the bank had 13 branches excluding the North and the East. Upto 2004 our main focus was project lending but with the merger of the National Development Bank and NDB Bank we provided commercial banking services to SME's and from that time we are promoting the financing of SME projects as well. SG