Finance minister A M A Muhith has admitted that companies including Beximco Group may have suffered for the list of bank loan defaulters he had unveiled in the parliament on Sunday, which was based on data updated up to March.

He said the government will soon unveil an updated list of the firms that have defaulted on repayment of loans and many companies may be dropped off the new list. Muhith said that Beximco Group in a letter to him on Wednesday said that they were no longer loan defaulters and that they had been unfairly put on the list.

"I would not oppose the claim. They might be right. It will be clear after the publication of the new list," he told reporters on Thursday. "The list will be published after we get the data of the last month on the matter." "We will take measures so that no companies face any bad impact of the new list."

Muhith spoke to the media after launching a programme on online income tax return submission organised by Large Taxpayer Unit, (a unit of National Board of Revenue) at NBR auditorium in Segunbagicha.. The minister on July 5 rolled out a list of 2,196 companies with classified loans totalling Tk 15,451 crore as of March this year

"Many companies might be dropped off the list I submitted in the parliament after getting the updated data of May-June period," he said. Muhith said that the list he revealed was updated up to March 31 and collected from the central bank's Credit Information Bureau.

According to that list, Beximco Textile was the largest defaulter with around Tk 353 crore loan followed by Padma Textile Mills Limited, another company of Beximco Group, with nearly Tk 293 crore. The minister said that many companies became loan defaulters during the state of emergency. Many owners were sent to jail, some remained fugitives and many assets were confiscated at the time, he added.

"I will not comment on whether the moves were right or wrong. Sometimes they were right," Muhith said. "Many industries returned to production after December and were able to get their names droped by rescheduling loan." "It takes much time to get list from CIB. Sometimes banks delay to send loan default related information to the central bank."

- bdnews