Bhutan Policy Notes : Developing CSI Firms
In recent years, the government of Bhutan has been placing increasing emphasis on cottage and small industry (CSI) development. It has been revising the 2012 CSI policy to provide strong support for the growing sector. The envisioned reforms focus...
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| Format: | Policy Note |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/287611564663384651/Bhutan-Developing-CSI-Firms-Policy-Notes http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32293 |
| Summary: | In recent years, the government of
Bhutan has been placing increasing emphasis on cottage and
small industry (CSI) development. It has been revising the
2012 CSI policy to provide strong support for the growing
sector. The envisioned reforms focus on six key areas to
develop entrepreneurship ecosystems: the policy and
legislative framework, the entrepreneurship culture and
human capital, business development support and
infrastructure, access to finance and incentives, innovation
and technology adoption, and access to markets. The CSI
sector has several characteristics. First, the sector
accounts for 90 percent of industry in Bhutan. Second, as of
2018, there were more than 30,000 registered CSIs in the
country, although only a third of these are considered
active and operational. Third, according to the 2011 World
Bank Enterprise Survey, the average number of people
employed by CSIs in Bhutan was 1.9 per cottage enterprise
and 6.8 per small enterprise. Fourth, the CSI sector is
dominated by men. Women are more active in service-oriented
industries, where they represent more than 41 percent of
firm owners. Fifth, partly because of a lack of collateral,
the CSI sector has not received strong skills and financial
support, especially in agribusiness. Except for the Bhutan
Development Bank Limited, the exposure of financial
institutions in the agricultural sector in 2017 was below 1
percent. As part of the reform process, there have been
multiple CSI interventions by several agencies in key
sectors. The policy implementation is still ongoing, but
there are several preliminary considerations. First, the
financial viability of CSI banks (especially REDCL) must be
maintained, and the RMA should exercise strong oversight to
ensure that nonperforming loan ratios are adequately
monitored at banks. Second, trends in priority sector
lending among CSIs will need to be monitored because they
are encouraging banks to shift away from traditional lending
norms whereby collateral and loan guarantors are
prerequisites. In this context, removing disincentives (e.g.
financial infrastructure, reverse factoring platform) or
providing incentives (e.g. partial credit risk guarantees)
rather than lending targets on financial intermediaries may
serve the CSI segment best. The analysis suggests that the
implementation of new priority sector lending policy for CSI
banking reflects a degree of shift in RGoB approach to
foster access to finance for CSI from one mainly focused on
strengthening market functions through supporting the
development of the financial infrastructure or ecosystem and
institutional capacity to one of a higher degree of
dirigiste intervention in the allocation process of loans by
the banking system. |
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