Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday appealed to banks to provide adequate long-term credit to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), increase credit to agriculture and take steps to expand beyond Indian shores. "The deployment of credit must keep pace with changes in structure of the economy. The banking industry needs to equip itself to be able to assess and meet the credit needs of the economy,” Singh said in the inaugural address to mark the bi-centennial celebrations of State Bank of India. There is a need for banks to provide adequate long-term finance to SMEs. "With the gradual disappearance of development banks in the original form, a gap in credit availability is emerging,” he said.
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