Bank to cut back SME projects

THE National Development Bank will cut back on its small to medium enterprise (SME) programmes given the decrease in the bank’s budget allocation for next year, managing director Moses Liu says.
Liu said this will affect implementation of the SME policy that was launched this year.
The allocation for SMEs under NDB is K30 million.
“The budget allocation for next year will definitely affect the SME policy.  That will really affect the implementation of it.
“We were expecting K100 million or so (under NDB),” Liu said.
“We believe that the implementation of the SME policy might be put on hold because of the lack of funding to roll out the programme.”
He said demand for loans at the bank has increased.
“The demand for SME loans has grown over 20 per cent every year and that K30 million is just for NDB’s existing customer loans that have been approved and are pending funding.
“We’ve had a huge cut in the supplementary budget, about K49 million so obviously the approved loans are still there to be funded and therefore there is no scope for extra funding to implement the SME policy – it’s going to be a problem.
“So for 2017, the policy will be put in the back burner and maybe in 2018 we will probably actually go out and seek additional funding from the Government to go out and roll out the programme.
“We can’t fully implement the SME policy in a big way as expected at the moment.”
Liu said the cut would be unfair for the small people in the communities and rural areas.
“It is small businessmen and women who look after our people at home,” Liu said.