The State Bank of India (SBI) has disbursed Rs 350 crore in the infrastructure sector in the first three quarters of the current financial year against Rs 2,000 crore sanctioned for the same period.
Stating this, SBI managing director M P Radhakrishnan said the financing is apart from investments in various state electricity board bond issues. He said there has been a 10 per cent over growth in credit by the end of December as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.
Growth in steel and cement sector has been very satisfactory. Also, other areas such as oil, sugar, power, chemicals and roads have shown good growth in credit disbursement, he added.
Though pure credit has not been very robust, he said credit growth has to be noted by combining the investments in ECB, bonds, commercial paper and pure credit. Giving a break-up of the credit disbursement, he said the top-rated clients have drawn credit amounting to $400 million through the external commercial borrowing route, Rs 800 crore has been invested in the bond sector and Rs 2,800 crore in commercial papers.
Meanwhile, talking on the industrial growth of the country, deputy managing director of State Bank of India B M Bhide said, It will take atleast six months for the industry to revive."
He said, "The cement and steel industry will suffer due to cheap imports while in the export market a cut-throat price war has emerged due to the south-east Asian turmoil.
In this sectors demand supply has widen due to increase in supply and low demand."
This might also have an impact on the petrochemical industry where there are huge capacities in other Asian countries, making imports cheaper and leading to dumping by them," he added.
