Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.29
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
In Azerbaijan, the share of problem loans is less than 6 percent of the total loan portfolio of banks, the chairman of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Elman Rustamov told reporters Oct.28.
He said that the information about the increase in the volume of overdue loans is untrue.
"Problem loans in Azerbaijan make up less than 6 percent of the portfolio," said Rustamov. "Reserves have been created on 80 percent of them by the banks."
He said that in comparison with other countries, it (the volume of overdue loans) is a very low index.
"Such changes in the structure of the loan portfolio of banks are observed mainly at the expense of consumer loans," said Rustamov. "But the banks generated reserves at the expense of their revenues and such credits do not create any problems for them."
There are 44 banks in Azerbaijan, the total loan portfolio of which is 5 977.2 million AZN as of the end of August 2014. Of the total portfolio of the banks there were overdue loans and grants worth 938.8 million AZN (5.4 percent) versus 764.8 million (5.3 percent) in January-August 2013. Statistics of overdue loans does not include similar loans of Agrarkredit non-bank credit organization. The overdue loans increased by 22.8 percent during a year.