Sterling Bank Reaffirms Commitment To Agric Sector Growth

Chief executive officer of Sterling Bank Plc, Mr. Abubakar Suleiman has said, the bank is ready and willing to invest more in Nigeria’s agricultural sector, having invested more than N100 billion; a figure that represents about 15 per cent of the bank’s total loans portfolio.

The CEO stated this in his closing remarks at the Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) 2022 with the theme: ‘Engineering a Trillion Dollar Agricultural Economy’ held recently with more than 10,000 attendees from across the world.

Agriculture is one of the five sectors of the economy that the bank has focused its investments since 2018 as part of her HEART of Sterling strategy. The others are health, education, transportation, and renewable energy.

Suleiman observed that apart from the Bank of Agriculture, there is no any other financial institution that has committed its resources to agricultural financing like Sterling Bank

The CEO noted that the summit became imperative as part of the global conversation on food security due to the consequences of global trade which was so obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a global disruption in the supply chain.“So, this conversation about food security in Africa is one that we will continue to sponsor because of its existential purpose which is about leveraging our competitive advantage,” he said.