Agrobank sets its sights on driving socio-economic recovery plan in the agriculture sector

KUALA LUMPUR: Agrobank is all set and ready to drive the nation’s socio-economic recovery plan and growth in the food security and agriculture sectors through its five-year Strategic Business Plan 2021-2025 (SBP 2021-2025).

Agrobank covering president and chief executive officer Khadijah Iskandar said agriculture remains as one of Malaysia’s main engines of growth from economic and social development perspectives, and Agrobank as the only agriculture-focused Developmental Financial Institution (DFI) in the country, shall stay focus to serve the needs of the agriculture sector and its communities through its SBP 2021-2025 which charts its business direction for the next five years.

“It has been the mandate since our inception in 1969 to support the government to develop the agriculture sector, and we believe as we move forward to fulfil our renewed vision ‘Advancing Agriculture Beyond Banking’, there is more work needed to be done to grow our agri-community, especially the unserved and underserved communities in Malaysia as a whole.

‘Agrobank as the only agriculture-focused Developmental Financial Institution (DFI) in the country, shall stay focus to serve the needs of the agriculture sector and its communities through its SBP 2021-2025 which charts its business direction for the next five years,’ said Agrobank covering president and chief executive officer Khadijah Iskandar.

“Covid-19 brought us closer to the customers, in terms of paying more attention towards understanding what their critical needs are during these challenging times.

“The wave of Covid-19 has massively accelerated some pre-existing trends particularly in digitalisation. Looking beyond the pandemic, we believe that there is still much more we can do for the communities, and we do have exciting plans to uplift the long-term recovery of the agriculture sector,” she said.

According to Khadijah, the SBP 2021-2025 was crafted during the pandemic, therefore it clearly describes the bank’s plans and directions to support the development of the agriculture sector and the agri-communities over the next five years with focus on four Strategic Focus Areas (SFA).

The four SFA are as stated below:

(i) Sound Agricultural Development

(ii) Inclusive Customer Focus

(iii) Transformative Business Models

(iv) Sustainable Financial Condition.

SBP 2021-2025 is anchored by four main SFA, as follows:

(i) Sound Agricultural Development

Realigning Agrobank’s core developmental activities towards supporting national focus areas for agricultural development.

(ii) Inclusive Customer Focus

Upward migrating the customers in key segments (particularly B40 low income group, entrepreneurs and young agri-SMEs), becoming partners in the development of their overall financial wellbeing, and improving the overall Agrobank customer experience.

(iii) Transformative Business Models

Introducing new ways for Agrobank to conduct business with the aim of supporting agricultural development, through modalities that go beyond conventional banking.

(iv) Sustainable Financial Condition

Maintaining a balance between strengthening the developmental impact and ensuring financial stability.

In realising the goals of SBP 2021-2025, Agrobank will seek to proactively create value through smart partnership and synergistic collaboration with its business partners in order to achieve mutual benefits especially towards achieving its vision.

Functioning as a catalyst within the ecosystem will thus enable the bank to unlock and extract maximum value from its available resources and expertise in agriculture and food industries.

“The journey towards becoming an entrepreneur especially within the agriculture sector, is very challenging, therefore as long-term partners in this journey Agrobank shall support these agropreneurs by providing both financial and non-financial support at every step of their success.

“To push this agenda, one of the four SFA in SBP 2021-2025 is called the Inclusive Customer Focus,” she shared.

“Besides improving the overall Agrobank customer experience, we have strategic initiatives in place to support these young agropreneurs (the B40 group, asnaf, youth and women segment) over their lifecycle to strengthen their credit worthiness and improve their income generation capabilities,” she added.

Meanwhile, Agrobank continues to play its role through the distribution of government stimulus packages such as Penjana, Pemulih, Special Relief Facility (SRF) and targeted relief as well as recovery facilities, to assist the post Covid-19 economic recovery in the agriculture sector.

“To date, we have disbursed various sorts of stimulus funds, including those under the Finance Ministry, Agriculture and Food Industries Ministry and Bank Negara Malaysia - approximately a total of RM924mil benefitting 14,824 customers around Malaysia.

“Agrobank will continue to play a vital role in extending financing programmes at low rates and other accommodating terms to address disruption in the supply chain.

“Even with the pandemic and the nation’s current situation, our month-on-month growth remains steady at 5% compared to the industry growth about 3%, “she said.

Beyond the financial assistance, Agrobank continues to supply the changing needs of its customers through its Agrobank Centre of Excellence (ACE), which provides educational support to agropreneurs by offering a multitude of online courses, webinars and special programmes to help the customers.