According to its 2009 Annual Report the institute disbursed 5,723 loans valued at $1.764 billion, improving its performance over the previous year when applicants received 5,084 loans valued at $1.463 billion. Last year IPED also increased the total number of borrowers on its portfolio by 5.1 per cent from 4,730 in 2008 to 4,972.
As has been the practice in previous years micro loan clients continued to occupy the greatest share of the institute’s portfolio with 2,878 clients accounting for 58 per cent of its borrowers. Micro clients accessed loans up to a ceiling of $350,000 with more than 1,000 borrowers securing loans of less than $100,000. “This segment of borrowers consists of more than 60 per cent women some of whom are single parents and their sole source of income is the economic activity funded by IPED,” the 2009 report says.
The agriculture sector once again featured prominently in IPED’s lending portfolio last year, accounting for 41 per cent of its loan balances with the rice sector accounting for 26 per cent of the gross loan balances outstanding at the end of 2009. Loans to the service sector to help fuel retail trading accounted for 38 per cent of the gross portfolio. IPED’s lending represents 4.2 per cent of all business loans within the local banking sector.
While the institute’s role in the retail and service sectors over the years has stood out on its lending portfolio, its 2009 performance reflects an increasing impact on lending to the agricultural sector. Last year, IPED held a 28.4 per cent share of the lending market for the rice paddy sector and 15 per cent of the lending market in the livestock sector. Over the same period, loans to the “other agriculture” sector amounted for 66.1 per cent of overall lending to that sector.
During last year, the institute’s Entrepreneurial Development Centre continued to enhance the chances of business success focusing on “expanding the market in relation to its business development programme.” According to the report, during 2009 the centre focused on “forging partnerships with the public and private sectors to develop their human resources.” In the process, 1,575 students benefited from IPED’s partnership with the Institute of Commercial Management in the United Kingdom while a further 141 employees from various organisations participated in capacity-building workshops in various business-related disciplines including Customer Service, Inventory Management and Leadership and Management.
In his assessment of IPED’s performance during last year, Chairman of the Institute’s Board of Directors Yesu Persaud reported that “interest income” for 2009 totalled $330 million, an increase of 34 per cent on the $245 million garnered in 2008. However, investment income last year declined to $31 million from $41 million in the previous year, a circumstance attributed by Persaud to less funds being available “due to growth of investment in the loan portfolio and the repayment of the USAID loans to the Government of Guyana of $454 million in July 2008.
Last year the institute made several awards to clients deemed to have successfully managed IPED-funded projects. Most of the awards were made to projects in the agricultural sector including the rice cultivation, sheep rearing, and mixed crop farming sub-sectors. Projects in the vending, furniture manufacturing, food processing, advertising and poultry rearing sectors also received IPED awards last year.
