President Irfaan Ali yesterday announced that following discussions with commercial banks, the interest rate for loans to the poultry sector will be cut from 8% to 5%.
This is an effort to make more liquidity available to farmers and reduce their monthly costs.
This move will be enabled by the removal of the corporate income tax on interest income from loans extended by banks to the poultry sector.
According to the President, during discussions over the last three weeks, farmers and investors in the poultry sector were promised that the government would further examine ways in which they can address the issue of the cost of capital and the interest rate for small farmers. As such, in a live broadcast early yesterday morning Ali announced, “We will introduce a facility under which the interest income earned by commercial banks on loans granted to the poultry sector will be free of corporate income tax… This now will enable commercial banks to lower their interest rate, the charge to the poultry sector by almost 3%, from 8% to about 5 %.”
