BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
Lending to the economy by Georgian commercial banks increased by 1.93 million lari ($598,867) in September 2020, compared to the previous month and amounted to 35.88 billion lari ($11.1 billion), Trend reports via the National Bank of Georgia (NBG).
According to the NBG, the annual growth rate of the loan portfolio issued by commercial banks amounted to 21.1 percent.
Without the exchange rate effect, the annual growth in loans amounted to 15.2 percent.
“The growth of the loan portfolio was mainly influenced by the growth of loans in national currency, as well as the growth of loans in foreign currency in lari due to the depreciation of the exchange rate. Long-term loans accounted for 89.4 percent of the loan portfolio, 57 percent of which were loans in foreign currency," the NBG said.
During the reporting period, loans in national currency increased by 219 million lari ($67.9 million) or by 1.4 percent and amounted to 15.49 billion lari ($4.8 billion).
The volume of loans in foreign currency in September decreased by $59.3 million or by 0.9 percent compared to the previous month and amounted to $6.47 billion at the end of the period.
Some 60.2 percent of loans in this category are loans to legal entities, and 89.2 percent are long-term loans.
As reported, the overdue debt in September decreased by 36.7 million lari ($11.3 million) and amounted to 523.2 million lari ($162.3 million). Their share in the loan portfolio of commercial banks amounted to 1.4 percent. Some 31 percent of overdue loans were denominated in the national currency.
In the reporting period, the level of dollarization of the entire loan portfolio increased by 0.8 percentage points to 57 percent.
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