KARACHI, Feb 18: All 21 banks, involved in distribution of agricultural credit under the State Bank's mandatory scheme, offered Rs57.51 billion loans in seven months to January 2005.

Banking sources said that five major local banks namely Allied Bank, Habib Bank, Muslim Commercial Bank, National Bank and United Bank made a combined farm lending of Rs26.98 billion between July 2004 and January 2005.

ABL disbursed Rs2.17bn against its full fiscal year target of Rs3bn; HBL Rs8.59bn against the target of Rs10bn; MCB Rs3.31bn against Rs5bn; NBP Rs10.25bn against Rs15bn and UBL Rs2.66bn against Rs5bn.

Zarai Taraqiati (Agricultural Development) Bank Ltd. disbursed Rs20.54bn farm loans in seven months to January this year against its full fiscal year target of Rs34bn.

Punjab Provincial Co-operative Bank disbursed Rs4.66bn against the target of Rs8bn. Fourteen local private banks exceeded their full fiscal year target of Rs5 billion by offering Rs5.32 billion farm loans in the first seven months.

THESE BANKS ARE: Askari Commercial Bank, Bank Al-Habib, Bank Alfalah, Bolan Bank, Faysal Bank, Metropolitan Bank, PICIC Commercial Bank, KASB Bank, Prime Commercial Bank, Saudi Pak Commercial Bank, Soneri Bank, The Bank of Khyber, The Bank of Punjab and Union Bank.

The banking sector as a whole disbursed Rs57.51 billion farm credit during July 2004-January 2005 against the full fiscal year target of Rs85 billion. The State Bank expects that the flow of farm credit during this fiscal year would rise to Rs100 billion that would form part of the overall private sector credit of Rs350 billion.