BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 6
By Tamilla Mammadova - Trend:
The coronavirus pandemic is expected to affect many sectors of Georgia's economy, National Bank of Georgia (NBG) told Trend.
"Within the framework of social responsibility, commercial banks operating in Georgia have offered consumers to postpone paying not only interest rate on loans, but also the loan principal for three months," said NBG.
Banks are ending the first quarter of 2020 with negative net profit which is largely related to loan loss provisions, while operational profit was positive, the report said.
"It is expected that over the course of the year, credit activity will slow down. However, there are quite large buffers to neutralize potential losses this year, and the stability of the banking sector will persist," the bank said.
As a result of travel restriction between countries and limited domestic economic activity, revenues from tourism and exports of goods will significantly reduce, the NBG noted.
"According to our estimations, the revenue from tourism will decline by around 60 percent in 2020," the bank added.
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