Djebbar: “Loans Meant To Finance National Economy Have Risen By Over 10 Percent”

The Head of the Association of Banks and Financial Institutions, Mr. Boualem Djebbar, said that the volume of bank loans aimed at financing the national economy is expected to grow by more than 10 percent in 2017, after an increase of 7 percent during the first six months of the same year.

The latter hiked by 15.3 percent in 2016 and 16.6 percent in 2015.

The introduction of non-conventional financing by the end of 2017 will allow the injection of liquidity to finance the processing programs, which will allow for an improvement in bank liquidity as well as maintaining the pace of growth of loans directed to spurring the national economy, he argued. 

He also pointed out that 75 percent of granted bank loans are long-term and medium-term loans directed at financing fresh investments.

Despite shrinking bank resources due to the deficit in external hard currency earnings, loans meant to spur the national economy continued to rise during the first six months of 2017 at a growth rate of 7 percent compared with 6.4 percent in the first six months of 2016 and 2.2 percent during the second half of the same year.

The pace of loans with shrinking bank resources prompted many banks to refinance at the Bank of Algeria during the second half of 2017, he indicated.

It should be noted that the share of loans granted to the public sector has shifted from about 50 percent at the end of 2016 to 49.2 percent by the end of June 2017. 

The share of loans to the private sector on the other hand has hiked from 50 percent to 50.78 percent, of which 7.04 percent are destined to families and until the end of 2016, the overall bank loans were estimated at 8 billion Dinars.