Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 30
By Elena Kosolapova – Trend:
Kazakh banks have increased loan issuance since the beginning of 2017, Kazakhstan’s National Bank said in a message.
The issuance of loans increased by 7.9 percent or 93.3 billion tenges in January-February 2017 as compared to the same period of 2016, to hit 1.27 trillion tenges.
The loans in national currency, tenge, to non-bank legal entities rose by 32.7 percent or 104.5 billion tenges to 424.4 billion tenges. Interest rate on such loans decreased by 11.6 percentage points, or almost twice since January 2016 to 14.3 percent in February 2017.
Demand for new loans in foreign currency is decreasing. In February 2017, the volume of foreign currency loans was at the lowest level since January 2013 and reached 62.3 billion tenges, 12.6 percent less compared to the previous month.
In January-February 2017, lending in foreign currency decreased 65.8 percent compared to the same period of 2016.
Meanwhile, the total loan portfolio of Kazakh banks decreased in January-February 2017 due to higher amount of repayments on previously issued loans. The volume of banks’ loans to the economy hit 12.354 trillion tenges as of late February 2017, which is 3.9 percent less than in the beginning of the year.
(315.2 tenges = $1)
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