A factory owner of the country’s ready-made garment sector will get up to Tk 35 crore in loans from a Tk 276-crore JICA fund to retrofit, rebuild and relocate his or her industry. Bangladesh Bank issued a circular to managing directors and chief executive officers of all banks saying that the factory owners of the RMG sector would get the loan at up to six per cent rate of interest from the JICA fund. Under the JICA fund, participating banks and non-bank financial Institutions will be provided with refinance or pre-finance facility by the BB for lending for building safety of RMG factories for short to long term durations, it said. Interested banks and NBFIs which want to participate in this fund will have to apply to the central bank by October 19. The factory owners of the garment sector will get 2 year grace period including 10 years repayment tenure to retrofit and take fire safety measures for their industries if they take loan from the JICA fund.They will get 3-year grace period including 15-year repayment tenure to relocate and rebuild their industries, the circular said.Almost all the garment factories in the country need to go for remediation work to fulfil the recommendations the buyers made after the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013.
