State Bank provides flexibility to hospitals

KARACHI: The central bank on Monday said hospitals and medical centres engaged in fight against COVID-19 would be allowed to avail financing against their existing equipments as well, provided it was used in creation of special facility and isolation ward to deal with the pandemic.

“Moreover, maximum coverage of 60 percent of civil works for setting up separate/isolation facility has also been enhanced to 100 percent,” the State Bank of Pakistan said in a statement.

Banks have been directed to ensure that financing extended under this facility was utilised for the intended purpose. The SBP believes new changes would help hospitals avail its refinance facility with much ease.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the SBP has taken a number of measures to support the economy. One of the earliest measures taken by the SBP was to support the hospitals, which have been at the fore front in combating the disease, by providing them a facility to meet their financial needs namely the SBP Refinance Facility to Combat COVID-19 (RFCC) on March 17, 2020.

Since then SBP received several suggestions by stakeholders to further improve it. Keeping in view such suggestions, the SBP has provided more flexibility under RFCC to facilitate the health sector further.