About 5000 loan portfolios worth $33million exist with the Sugar Cane Growers Fund, says CEO Raj Sharma.
Appearing on The Fiji Times’ online portal The Lens@177, Mr Sharma said the loan portfolios were from 4600 registered farmers.
“We have a $33m portfolio of the cane growers, and another $4m is the corporate loan that we have,” Mr Sharma said.
“Our demographics, when we look at the age factors of the farmers, is between 35 years and 55.
“And we have farmers even up to 100 years old.
“When we look at gender, currently, about 8 per cent are females and the rest, 92 per cent male farmers.
“When we look at the other demographics of the portfolio, 33 per cent of the portfolio is held by the Northern Division and 66 per cent is in the Western Division, with the two major centres of the portfolio being Labasa and Ba.”
Mr Sharma said 60 per cent of their assets were backed by the cane industry.
“We need a minimum operating cost of around $1.3m to $1.4m,” he said.
“We make an interest rate of about $1.6m from the loans. So, that means our core business is lending.
“I would say that out of our staff of 35, close to about 25 or 26 of them are in the core business, so we have to pay them office rental, which needs around $1.3m to $1.4m.”
Mr Sharma said the fund received interest of between $1.6m and $1.7m which sustains their operations.
“For our sustainability, there is a diversification. We got about $23m or so.
“These are in bonds, term deposits and other investments that we have, inclusive of South Pacific Fertilisers which is our subsidiary company.”
