ISLAMABAD, March 27: The Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) has posted pre-tax profit of over Rs1.7 billion in the year ending on Dec 31, 2007.

This growth is 183 per cent more than the last year and is unprecedented in the history of ZTBL, the officials said.

A meeting of the board of directors of ZTBL on Thursday appreciated the performance of the bank while announcing its profit.

The turnaround in bank’s profitability was mainly due to the substantial increase in its recovery, which grew by 21 pc. The bank recovered Rs63.2 billion

in 2007, which is Rs11 billion more compared to 2006.

The exceptional growth was witnessed in special asset management (SAM) loans recovery, which grew by 76 per cent as the bank recovered SAM loans of Rs5.1 billion compared to the SAM recovery of Rs2.9 billion in the previous year.

SAM loans are those loans, which are considered unrecoverable for more than three years. The sources said the ZTBL recovered SAM as profit on balance sheet.

The bank’s disbursement also grew as it touched the mark of Rs56 billion. It substantially enhanced its outreach by increasing the number of borrowers to 475,756 from 443,874 in the previous year.

On the deposit side, the bank managed to raise its deposits to Rs4.4 billion, which grew by 52 per cent, thus adding to its financial viability for provision of more banking services to its customers, particularly rural clientele.The board also appreciated bank’s new initiatives like Evening banking, lockers facilities, signing of MoUs with KSB Pumps, Pakistan Dairy Development Company, and Nestle for the provision of sustainable rural financial services, irrigation facilities and the development of the dairy sector.

The bank maintained its credit rating as AAA/A-1+ with stable outlook as the Japanese credit rating company, JCR-VIS, in its report has reaffirmed the ZTBL’s credit rating.