P300-M credit line okayed for Davao Sur cooperative

The government-run Land Bank of the Philippines has signed up with a cooperative in Davao del Sur for a P30 million credit line that will allow the latter to replenish its coffers.

Christian Harvey N. Wong, account officer of the bank in its Davao Lending Center, told TIMES in an online message that the loan facility will “allow the bank to reimburse the existing loans of the cooperative’s members,” in reference to BCS Credit Cooperative in Bansalan, Davao del Sur.

“Meaning, the existing loans of the cooperative’s members may be replenished by the bank to allow the cooperative maintain its liquidity, therefore, enable them to accommodate more loans from small farmers and micro entrepreneurs,” Wong said.

The bank approved the credit line to allow the cooperative “to finance its members’ agricultural production and other livelihood needs,” he said, adding that the entity has about 5,000 small farmermembers out of its 42,000 members and that these farmers “will stand to benefit from the approved credit line.”

The cooperative, he added, is the biggest in Davao del Sur and that the facility is in support of the thrust of the government to provide “timely, affordable and accessible financial support to our mandated sectors particularly cooperatives and Farmers organizations.”

He added that bank can also “rediscount promissory notes of the cooperative up to a fiveyears term.” “We can reimburse or rediscount the cooperative’s production loans which typically have five-year terms, those for long gestating plants.”