{"id":12485,"date":"2019-04-25T06:52:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T06:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=12485"},"modified":"2019-04-25T06:52:50","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T06:52:50","slug":"high-interest-rate-charged-by-banks-hampers-burundi-economic-development-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/high-interest-rate-charged-by-banks-hampers-burundi-economic-development-expert-says\/","title":{"rendered":"High interest rate charged by banks hampers Burundi economic development, expert says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The interest rate applied by Burundian commercial banks is considered high and this may lead to the risk of default on the loan,&#8221; said Dr. Janvier D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Nkurunziza, an economic expert in a debate conference organized on April 24 by the Association of Banks and Financial Institutions [ABEF].<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12484\" style=\"width: 524px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12484\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-12484\" src=\"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Janvier-Desire-Nkurunziza.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"514\" height=\"296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Janvier-Desire-Nkurunziza.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Janvier-Desire-Nkurunziza-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Janvier-Desire-Nkurunziza-768x442.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Janvier-Desire-Nkurunziza-600x345.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 514px) 100vw, 514px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-12484\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Janvier D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Nkurunziza: &#8220;The interest rate applied by Burundian commercial banks is considered high and this may lead to the risk of default on the loan&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>He believes that the application of accessible interest rates will encourage more entrepreneurs to develop their activities. He also says only 7% of the Burundian population use banks adding that that very few credits are allocated to the agricultural sector while more than 90% of the Burundian population live on agricultural activities.<\/p>\n<p>Mr.Nkurunziza says agriculture represents 40% of GDP. &#8220;Agriculture is the preferred sector of Burundi&#8217;s economy.&#8221; He calls on financial institutions to increase the amount allocated to this sector.<\/p>\n<p>L\u00e9onard Sentore, Director of the Investment Promotion Agency is worried that entrepreneurs who obtain credits from banks at a rate of 20% cannot pay their debts after paying 30% of taxes. &#8220;Entrepreneurs are reluctant to apply for credits because of this high interest rate,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>Audace Bukuru, chairman of ABEF reassures that the Central Bank is developing a financial regulation that will set an interest rate that will not be exceeded. He believes that the regulation will be issued by June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The interest rate applied by Burundian commercial banks is considered high and this may lead to the risk of default on the loan,&#8221; said Dr. Janvier D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Nkurunziza, an economic expert in a debate conference organized on April 24 by the Association of Banks and Financial Institutions [ABEF]. He believes that the application of accessible [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":12484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[45,735],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12486,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12485\/revisions\/12486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}