Agriculture loans hit nearly P600 billion in 2018

MANILA, Philippines — Loans extended to the country’s farmers and fisherfolks continued to increase, hitting nearly P600 billion last year.

Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that agricultural loans were valued at P596.16 billion in 2018, 10.87 percent higher than the previous year’s record of P537.72 billion.

Of this amount, 84 percent or P502.63 billion was used to finance agricultural production purposes.  This represents an increase of 15 percent year on year.

The bulk of the loans for agricultural production activities was sourced from private banking institutions.

The share of private banks, however, fell to 81.4 percent, equivalent to P409.15 billion.

Private commercial banks (PKBs) remained the biggest provider of loans, accounting for the biggest share at 46.32 percent of the  total loans  in 2018.

Savings and mortgage banks (SMBs) followed with a 10.18 percent share. Loan extensions by the private development banks (PDBs) and rural banks (RBs) accounted for 8.55 percent and 8.38 percent, respectively.

Stocks savings and loan associations (SSLAs) provided the least number of loans, taking up only 7.97 percent of the total agricultural production loans.

Meanwhile, loan assistance extended by government banks increased as its share rose to 18.6 percent, translating to loan volume of P93.49 billion.

Government banks increased their loan capacity as lending volume jumped  67.21 percent.

In particular, credit extension by the Development Bank of the Philippines soared by 976.01 percent.

On the other hand, the Land Bank of the Philippines slowed down their credit support which went up by only 10.15 percent in 2018 from the 27.12 percent growth recorded in 2017.