With the aim of providing a fair price to paddy farmers, the government has decided to provide loans at a concessional interest rate to small and medium-scale paddy mill owners and cooperative societies to purchase the 2025 Yala season paddy harvest.
Accordingly, the target groups of this loan scheme are small and medium-scale paddy mill owners and cooperative societies with a maximum daily paddy threshing capacity of 25 metric tons.
The Ministry of Finance said that to obtain this loan, all loan applicants must have a valid business registration certificate obtained from a relevant government institution and a license issued by the Paddy Marketing Board.
Under this loan scheme, they can obtain a loan of up to Rs. 50 million at an annual interest rate of 07% and the relevant loan amount must be repaid within 180 days, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
Accordingly, the following banks have been selected as participating financial institutions for this loan scheme.
Bank of Ceylon, People’s Bank, Regional Development Bank, Hatton National Bank, Seylan Bank, Sampath Bank, Commercial Bank, DFCC Bank, National Development Bank, Nations Trust Bank, Sanasa Development Bank, Amana Bank
Cargills Bank, Pan Asia Bank
The total value of the loan to be released through banks under this loan scheme is Rs. 6,500 million.