BRIEFS
Economy
Direction of agriculture fund debated
Deciding how best to maintain resources for a special fund intended to strengthen the country’s agriculture sector will pose a challenge to the incoming government.
Proceeds from dynamic growth within the banking sector’s loan portfolio have already boosted the fund’s finances by 20 percent this year, increasing the $40 million on average collected annually over the last four years to $56 million at the end of September, according to the Superintendency of Banks.
Established in 1994, the law regulating the fund stipulates that 50 percent of the capital collected must go to the Agricultural Development Bank, while the remaining 50 percent is put toward backing agricultural loans from private banks. Last year, however, the fund accumulated nearly $250 million, but only $26 million of that money had been earmarked by the Agricultural Development Bank for use.
Alexis Arjona, chairman of the Banking Association of Panama, commented that the use of these funds must “be adjusted to reality,” since there are always a major surpluses within a sector that he feels doesn’t have the volume to take advantage of the financial resource being offered them.
Economist Rolando Gordon suggested that the fund needs a “new direction,” because he argued that the financial help is being monopolized large-scale growers.
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