Farmers in trouble with the high rates for loans from microfinance institutions
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4 months ago
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Microfinance institutions are showing quite a "tight hand" in relation to farmers, who in most cases have difficulty accessing finance due to the lack of guarantees required by commercial banks.
Despite these difficult conditions and high rates of up to 19.2 percent or three times higher than interest rates in commercial banks, farmers and others did not stop taking loans. From January to September, microfinance and non-bank financial institutions had a net profit of 15 million and 200 thousand euros.
Farmer Xhemë Krasniqi, who has been involved in agriculture for many years, tells KosovaPress about the challenges they are facing to 'survive' in this sector. Even, in order not to give up this activity, he says that a little while ago they were forced to take a loan from a microfinance institution to cover expenses against the needs of the market.
While he says that they received a loan of 15 euros, he says that they are obliged to return about 6 euros more.
Furthermore, Krasniqi says that the interest rates for farmers are very high, while he has also requested the help of the state in this direction.
KosovaPress has also checked with one of the microfinance institutions about the loan rates. The same say that the maximum credit for agriculture is up to 25 euros, emphasizing that the repayment period is 60 months or 5 years, with an installment of 580 euros.
On the other hand, the governor of the Central Bank of Kosovo, Ahmet Ismaili, says that the loan rates for banks and non-banks, in general, are above the regional average.
Meanwhile, Kujtim Sahitaj, head of marketing, marketing department in Kreditimin Rural Kosova (KRK), speaking about the requirements, emphasizes that customers mainly dominate in agriculture. He has added that as a microfinance institution they support farmers in this direction for access to finance.
The President of the Chamber of Commerce of Kosovo, Lulëzim Rafuna, asks the microfinance institutions to reduce the interest rates.
These microfinance institutions offer small loans to individuals or family businesses with low incomes, but with simpler procedures than commercial banks.
