Bangkok, 26 November 2024

Agriculture credit experts from Cambodia, India, Philippines and Thailand gathered this week in Bangkok to discuss options for harmonizing reporting on credit extended to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture.

The agriculture credit experts worked together on the development of Guidelines on broad-based reporting of credit to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture. 

The guidelines encourage financial service providers and business partners to incorporate standard industry classifications in their credit and investment operations and reporting practices. It is expected that the guidelines will be finalized and endorsed by the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) in 2025. 

The guidelines are multi-purpose as they will:

• enhance loan portfolio management,
• improve general reporting on loans to sub-sectors of the agriculture sector,
• contribute to environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting,
• increase data availability for reporting on the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and
• facilitate harmonization of regional credit reporting approaches.

The credit reporting guidelines encourage the use of International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC) in the credit reporting systems of financial service providers working in rural development in the Asia Pacific region. 

Ms. Thanid Thitichowtwatthanakul, Executive Vice President, of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), Thailand, opened the two-day, APRACA – FAO Expert Workshop on Broad Based reporting requirements on credit to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture.  She welcomed the APRACA-FAO initiative to develop the guidelines, as these will strengthen our approaches in credit reporting and tracking. “We can bring positive change to the agriculture, forestry, fishery, and aquaculture sectors, ensuring they thrive for future generations”, she said. Classification of loans extended to agriculture sub-sectors, such as livestock and fish farmers, has enabled BAAC to address the credit needs of these farmers better.  

Dr. Prasun Kumar Das, APRACA Secretary General, added that the guidelines, once endorsed, will be a voluntary instrument of APRACA, and will help the APRACA members to learn from each other’s experiences in extending credit to agriculture sub-sectors and to further improve their loan portfolio performance.

FAO’s senior fishery officer, Dr. Raymon van Anrooy, said that the guidelines will be a unique credit reporting instrument and looked forward to its endorsement, implementation and possible extension to other regions. The present gap in regional and global information on loans and investments into agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture can be addressed by the Regional Agricultural Credit Associations (RACAs) in the coming years, and FAO would be happy to technically support these important initiatives.

Experts attending the workshop shared information on their data collection and reporting systems on credit. Innovative systems of data collection and processing were presented. The use of compiled sub-sector credit information would not be limited to the purposes listed above but could also be valuable for designing sectoral credit policies, promoting inclusive finance, sustainable finance and reporting on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change. Mr. Aziz Arya, Policy Officer of the FAO-Regional Office for the Asia and the Pacific, joined the Expert’s group and opined that the sharable data and information from the Central Banks may work as entry point to understand the trend. 

The APRACA – FAO Expert Workshop on Broad Based reporting requirements on credit to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, was held in Bangkok, Thailand, on 25-26 November 2024. For more information, please contact the APRACA Secretariat at: apraca@apraca.org