Historical Loan and Training Data as of 1993
- By 1993, LBP extended a total of P9.1 billion in loans and financial assistance.
- Beneficiaries included 886,503 small farmers and fishermen.
- Assistance was distributed through 5,198 cooperatives and 352 rural financial institutions.
- The bank also provided institutional training programs to strengthen cooperatives, having facilitated training for 3,259 cooperatives in 1993.
- Training topics included basic operations, management, value formation, bookkeeping, capital build-up, savings mobilization, and entrepreneurship.
Senate Committee Recommendation in Context of GATT-UR
- The Senate Committee on the Whole recommended increasing LBP's loans and assistance to farmers, acknowledging them as a sector vulnerable to the effects of the GATT-UR implementation.
Purpose and Mandate of the Administrative Order
- The order directs LBP to further increase loans and financial assistance to farmers' cooperatives as a safety net for adverse impacts from GATT-UR.
- It also mandates enhancing institutional training programs for farmers' cooperatives.
- These enhancements must be consistent with LBP’s financial viability.
Financial and Operational Provisions to Support Objectives
- LBP is to receive low-cost revolving funds from GATT-support funds allocated under the General Appropriations Act for lending to the agricultural sector.
- This aims to improve the Bank's funds mix and strengthen its financial capability to sustain agrarian and development programs.
- LBP is exempted from any governmental requirements to rechannel investible funds and deposits to the Bureau of Treasury or the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, granting it autonomy over such funds.
Effectivity
- The Administrative Order took effect immediately upon its adoption on December 7, 1994.