• Easy access to capital through linked with the banks.

• Assisting enterprises to develop business and marketing plan and to fill and submit bank loan applications.

• JOBS loan facilitation handbook.

• Training to selected SMME Bank clients

• Bank loan officer training on understanding and financing the special needs of SMEs.

• Loan portfolio guarantee (LPG) scheme under the micro and small enterprise development program of USAID.

• Facilitated for financing to individual Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs), Association and Partner NGOs through linked with Prime Bank Limited, BASIC Bank Limited and Social Investment Bank Limited.

• Individual counseling on appraising credit need of the enterprises, entrepreneurs, associations and NGOs, preparing the proposal, creating business & marketing plan, preparing financial statements and assistance for filling and submitting the bank loan applications.  

• Published and distributed the Loan Facilitation Handbook to SMMEs to disseminate all banks credit information including landing criteria and educate people (SMMEs) on lending process and procedures 

• Trained selected SMME bank clients on strengthening business and marketing development with an objective to assist them to improve the profitability efficiency of their enterprises and lead to increased sales. 

•  With the purpose of increasing the level of lending in the SME sector considering their special needs through introducing a new credit mechanism and awareness raising of the bank officers specially on SME financing, JOBS provided training to loan officers of different banks with the assistance of Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM). The participants will be taught through illustrations and cases how banks may finance high growth potential SMEs against their stocks, receivables and steady income flow instead of against traditional immovable assets. 

• Facilitated to launch the Loan portfolio guarantee (LPG) scheme under the micro and small enterprise development program of USAID in two commercial Banks 1) Prime Bank Limited 2) National Bank Limited.

• Facilitated more SMMEs to get easy access to get finance from Bank and financial intermediaries

• More focused on facilitate to Association/cluster based financing

• Increase movable assets based lending for SMEs

• Access to capital for MFIs on a cluster basis directly from financial institutions

• Extending financial support to rural markets and micro enterprises

• Facilitate low cost financing facility

• Graduating Micro Credit Brower's to Micro Enterprises through linked with the bank  

• Facilitate NGO’s and MFI’s to Access from the Formal Financial Market for the mobilization of Local Resources

Modhupur Pineapple Association

Access to capital to micro enterprises in rural markets JOBS first introduced the concept through working on a cluster or association based financing, directly from banks. Modhupur Pineapple Association is one of that great example of this success.  

Modhupur is about 150 kms northeast of Dhaka. It is enriched in Pineapple production. Besides, other agricultural products like banana, papaya, potato, ginger etc are also available in the area. Producers of the agro-based products are deprived of fair prices of their produces. Interference of lot of intermediaries in the distribution channel cuts major part of profit margin of the producers. Realizing these facts Pineapple Marketing & Processing Private Firm Ltd. established the association with the assistance from JOBS Project. with an aim to provide maximum benefit to the ultimate producers, which will play a vital role in employment creation & socio-economic aspect of that locality. To materialize their desire the association was formed for achieving the working capital assistance from bank and marketing support.

Through assistance of JOBS the association was formed in March 2001in the name of Modhupur Pineapple Marketing & Processing Private Firm. It has started its venture with 10 members at the initial stage. Though all of them have land to grow pineapples but due to working capital shortage they couldn’t cultivate larger production on their expectation. To solve this problem they sought loan from their local Government bank but they didn’t get any access from that bank. Moreover the terms and condition of the bank didn’t commensurate with their requirement. At this stage JOBS/Loan facilitation Unit extended its hand of cooperation to assist the marginal farmers of this association.  

First, Loan Facilitation Unit had a discussion with the Social Investment Bank Limited (SIBL) to finance this association. Though there was no branch of SIBL in Modhupur,    as this association was assisted by JOBS Project, bank agreed to finance them. In the first phase on May 2001 we facilitated finance Tk. 4,75,000 (US$ 9,500) as a pilot project which they utilized very successfully and returned the bank just after the harvesting period. Though they had to make the payment back for 6 months but the amount was paid back within 4 months since they went into operation. Based on this success of this project bank responded to JOBS proposal for financing them in Tk. 14,50,000 (US$ 27,358) in 2nd phase on May 2002 and Tk. 17,50,000 (US$ 32,358) in 3rd phases on November 2002  and Tk. 19,00,000 (US$ 32,815) in 4th phase on December 2003-February 2004.

Earlier individual growers sell their goods to the middleman of the local market but after establishment of Association their market has expanded. Now they are selling their product to external market (Cities and District level) along with the local market. Earlier individual growers didn’t get proper price because they were bound to sell to the few fixed Byers. Where the per unit sales price was Tk. 5.00 – 6.00. Now their market is open they can sell easily where they get maximum profit on sales price of Tk. 8.00 – 10.00 on an average where the profit increases like 80-90%. The producers were self employed with marginal income growth but through association they are working with a proper management and last year they created Job for 32 persons. The marketing cost, uncertainty and risk of the production are covered through all association members which is easy to effort them. The production cost was also minimized as at present all cost shared by the association members.

Such an effort of JOBS/Loan Facilitation Unit has changed the scenario of Modhupur and played an important key role in economic uplift of the entire community which is still stands as a success model for JOBS enterprise development initiative.

Linkage

• 12 Associations of Pineapple growers at Modhupur linked with the Social Investment Bank Limited.

• 85 SMMEs facilitated for finance through Banks

• 1 NGOs linked with the bank to get finance for strengthening Micro Credit support.

Facts and Figures

• Trained 328 entrepreneurs of Agrani Bank, Micro Enterprise Development Unit (MEDU) on Strengthening business and marketing development

• Trained 15 Branch Bank Officers of Agrani Bank, Micro Enterprise Development Unit (MEDU) on entrepreneurship development

• Trained 100 Bank credit officers of 21 banks at Dhaka on “Understanding and Financing the Special Needs of SMEs” conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management.

• Trained 57 Bank credit officers of 19 banks at Chittagong on “Understanding and Financing the Special Needs of SMEs” conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management.

• Total 3657 copies of Loan Facilitation Handbook both Bangla and English version distributed to SMMEs, Training participants, NGOs, Banks, Donors and other institutions.

Md. Hasan Imam Khan

Co-ordinator (Programs)

E-Mail:  hasan@jobsiris.dhaka-bd.net