A total of N5.335billion loans were guaranteed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under its Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) from January to October, 2008.

This was made known by the apex bank through information it uploaded on its site last week.

A state by state analysis of the loans guaranteed during the period under review, showed that Zamfara State tops with the sum of N741million, followed by Katsina State with N479 million.

Jigawa State came third with a total of N430 million guarantees, Benue N367million guarantees, Kwara N290 million guarantees, Adamawa N263 million guarantees, Plateau N245 million guarantees, Cross River State N237million guarantees and the remaining states with less than N200 million guarantees and below.

Meanwhile, the investments made under the Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme has hit N28.20 billion as at 31st October, 2008 out of the N42billion set aside by banks under the scheme.

An analysis of the information provided by the CBN on its website, the sum of N2.311billion was invested in 45 projects under the agro-allied industries, including woodwork and water bottling, while the sum of N8.103 billion was spent for 144 projects under the manufacturing sector, including printing and publishing.

Furthemore, under the real sector, construction projects, including quarrying, totaling 13 projects took away the sum of N2.78 billion while the sum of N59.44 million was spent for 3 projects under the solid minerals sub-sector.

Under the service-related sector, Information Technology and Communications gulped N1.778 billion for 23 projects, 6 projects were executed under the educational establishments sub-sector for N397million, services 76 projects for N5.312 billion and tourism/leisure 23 projects which also gulped N7.454 billion.