The Agricultural Bank of Sudan
The Agricultural Bank of Sudan is a specialized state-owned bank, headquartered in Khartoum, and is considered the first national bank in the country. It was founded on June 17, 1957 under a special law, and began its actual activity in 1959, serving as the state's financing arm in the agricultural sector, the activity on which the Sudanese economy has historically rested.
The bank was established to provide credit to small and medium farmers and cooperative societies, to provide production inputs such as improved seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural machinery, and to help producers handle, store and market their crops. Over the decades it evolved from a specialized bank into a comprehensive banking institution operating according to the principles of Islamic banking, offering traditional and electronic banking services, including current and investment deposits, alongside microfinance for productive families and rural women.
The bank's activity covers the main agricultural patterns in Sudan: irrigated, mechanized rain-fed and traditional agriculture, and it finances agricultural operations on a seasonal and medium-term basis, relying primarily on the "salam" contract in financing strategic crops. According to the Central Bank of Sudan's annual report for 2021, the bank accounted for 63.4 percent of total bank financing directed to the agricultural sector in that year.
The bank owns a wide storage infrastructure to support the strategic stockpile and food security, including grain silos in Port Sudan, Gedaref and Rabak, and more than 300 warehouses and grain stores (shounas) in the production areas, in addition to a network of branches and offices spread across Sudan's various states to serve producers in rural and urban areas. According to published data based on official reports, its network reached 106 branches and 13 offices covering Sudan's states, and it runs a remote-sensing center that uses geographic information systems to monitor the agricultural season and forecast production.
(Sources: Official website of the Agricultural Bank of Sudan, abs.sd; Central Bank of Sudan — Annual Report 2021; Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia — entry: Agricultural Bank of Sudan)
— Editorial Team
