State Bank of Pakistan announced to extend its Rozgar Scheme for Supporting Employment for another 3 months and widens its scope in collaboration with Government of Pakistan.
According to the statement issued by the central bank, soon after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, SBP took a number of steps to provide economic support to businesses and households. SBP reduced the financial cost to the private and public businesses and households by reducing the policy rate by a cumulative 625 basis points since 17th March 2020.
The statement also reads, “to improve the cash flow of businesses and households, it allowed deferment of principal amount and restructuring of loans. In addition to these measures, SBP introduced several refinance schemes to support employment and investment to fight the economic impact of COVID-19.
SBP has decided to extend the Rozgar scheme for another three months and, in collaboration
with the Government of Pakistan, has increased the risk coverage for SMEs under the scheme. For details see our SBP circulars available at:
http://www.sbp.org.pk/smefd/circulars/2020/CL14.htm
and
http://www.sbp.org.pk/smefd/circulars/2020/CL15.htm
The central bank also made two changes in the scheme as under;
Refinance Scheme to Support Employment and Prevent Layoff of Workers, commonly
known as SBP Rozgar scheme: This scheme provides concessional loans to businesses for wages and salaries expenses provided they commit not lay off their employees for the period of the loan.
GoP Risk Sharing Facility under SBP Rozgar Scheme: With a view to incentivize banks/DFIs for financing to SMEs and non SME corporates, Government of Pakistan (GoP) introduced a Risk Sharing Facility (RSF) for SBP’s Rozgar Scheme.
It is expected that the above two measures will allow more businesses to benefit from these schemes and thereby support the employment of their employees.
