eBusiness Weekly
HARARE – Agricultural Bank of Zimbabwe (Agribank) says it will take a leading role in the disbursement of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) export finance facilities especially for the budding businesses.
These include the $10 million youths empowerment fund, $15 million women empowerment fund and $5 million for people with disabilities. The funding facilities are meant to capacitate producers and enable them to enhance the competitiveness of their products for the export market.
Other facilities include the horticulture export facility. As part of efforts to enhance export growth, the bank last year signed a memorandum of understanding with trade promotion body, ZimTrade that would enable seamless interaction between the bank and qualifying beneficiaries.
“The Bank’s primary responsibility under the MOU include to provide funding to qualifying export beneficiaries under the RBZ Facilities and assess projects and recommend appropriate funding structures.
“The Bank recognises the importance and value of the youths, women and people with disabilities in the development of the country’s economy. In this regard, the bank is taking a lead role in the disbursement of the RBZ Facilities,” said Agribank.
Agribank evolved from the Land and Agricultural Bank of 1924 before changing into Agricultural Finance Corporation established in 1971 and became a fully-fledged commercial bank in 2000. Following a capital injection by Government in 2015, the bank’s tier 1 capital amounted to $55, 5 million as at December 2017.
The capital injection has also enabled the bank to surpass the regulatory Minimum Capital requirement of $25 million.
