Stiri	Stiri afaceri	Stiri companii	Evenimente de afaceri

Romanian Banks Association chairman: Lending activity to grow in 2009 too

Chairman of the Romanian Banks Association Radu Gratian Ghetea said on Tuesday the lending activity will grow in 2009 too, with funding for the SMEs and farming to increase.

'We no longer expect the lending activity to go up by some 50-60 percent this year, but such activity will keep on growing, as a majority of the banks has predicted', Ghetea told debates on competition issues.

He said that CEC Bank, the president of which he is, saw last year the balance of lending going up by 55 percent, while loans to the SMEs surged 95 percent; he anticipated that loans to this sector and to farming will go up this year too.

Non-governmental credit extended by the lending institutions was up 4.2 percent in Jan. from Dec. 2008, going higher than 206.435 billion lei, the National Bank of Romania (BNR) said in a release.

The national leu currency lending was up 0.1 percent (minus 1.1 percent in real terms), while forex loans went up 7.2 percent in leu terms; the forex loans were down 0.1 percent in euro terms.

Cutting the compulsory minimal reserve rate is no longer adequate at this moment, as it is a means by which liquidity might flee Romania, Ghetea said.

BNR governor Mugur Isarescu said on Monday that a very high level of the minimal compulsory reserves and of the interest rates are Romania's advantages, amid the perception of a risk in the region.

The central bank decided on Feb. 4 to keep the current level of the minimal compulsory reserve rates applicable to the leu- and forex liabilities of the lending institutions and to cut the key rate to 10 percent per annum down from 10.25 percent.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: lending percent activity banks euro cec bnr