Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 19
Trend:
The Azerbaijani government is considering the issue of the population's paying off dollar loan debts up to $5,000 at the exchange rate of 1.05 manat for $1, Elman Rustamov, the head of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), told reporters Jan. 19.
"Some $250 million may be required to compensate for the difference between the old and the new exchange rates," he said.
According to the CBA, as of December 1, 2015, the banks issued loans worth 18.744 billion manats, including 10.893 billion manats (58.1 percent) in the national currency, 7.851 billion manats (41.9 percent) in freely convertible currency.
As of November 2015, the volume of overdue loans in the loan portfolio of Azerbaijani banks amounted to 1.230 billion manats, which is 5.6 percent less than in the previous month. Their share in the loan portfolio of the banks amounted to 6.6 percent.
The volume of bad loans increased by 25.3 percent in January-November 2015 compared to the 11 months of 2014 (981.5 million manats) and 19.3 percent (1.031 billion manats) compared to early 2015.
The statistics of overdue loans does not include similar loans of Aqrarkredit non-bank credit organization.
There are 42 banks in Azerbaijan (two of them are state-owned).