Recovery of bank loans taken by Small and Medium Scale Enterprises has been suspended (SME) on the directions of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who is also the minister of Finance.
The Government has taken a decision to implement a new initiative to revive SMEs of which outstanding debt not exceeding Rs 300 million in each entity, Finance Ministry announced.
This will be made possible due to providing of substantial savings to all banks including the Central Bank through recently announced tax reforms, Ministry added.
The Government expects the banks to use part of such savings to revive the SME sector on a priority basis.
The directives from the President and the Prime Minister incorporated redresses to small and medium scale paddy millers as well.
The Government expects them to re-energise their milling operation to improve the competitiveness in the market and their capacities to be active in 2019/20 Maha season
This concessionary action will be followed by a comprehensive package coupled with already announced tax concessions introduced by the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank which will support both the lender and the borrowers especially the SME sector, the Finance Ministry said.
(LI)