YEREVAN, February 11. /ARKA/. Armenian banks’ credit exposure, including deposits, factoring and leasing, totalled over 1.6 trillion drams by the end of the fourth quarter 2012, a 4.7% increase against Q3, the Central Bank of Armenia reports.
The highest growth was recorded in lending to science and technical field – 28.3% to 5.1bln drams. Lending to mining companies grew by 19.4% to 84.2bln drams; loans to other industries went 33% up to 74.5bln drams.
In the reporting period, loans to healthcare sector grew by 16%, those to energy, gas and air treatment sectors went up by 12.8%; lending to services and catering grew by 12.1%.
At the same time, in 2012, decline was recorded in lending to transport and communication (18%), culture and recreation (11.4%) and healthcare (8.1%).
Negligible reduction was seen in loans to construction (3.1%), trade segment (0.3%), haulage and warehousing (0.9%).
The share of trade segment in overall loan portfolio was 20% and that of consumer loans was 18.4%. Loans to processing industry, mortgage loans and farm constituted 10.3%, 7.9% and 6.3% of the overall portfolio respectively.
There were 21 commercial banks operating in Armenia in 2012. ($1=406.10drams). –0–
