ROL credits grow faster

Non-governmental lending in ROL rose 21.84% to 80,997bn ROL in the first four months of the year, while the balance of foreign currency loans reached 123,717bn ROL, 11.4% more than at the end of last year, the filings of the banks with the National Bank of Romania (NBR) show.

The amounts reported by banks cover only those credits granted to residents, non-banking, non-governmental clients. Non-governmental lending is the sum total of the loans granted to non-bank clients, except those granted to budgetary institutions or the Treasury. #leadend# The ROL lending structure shows a more visible dynamic of the medium and long-term loans. In the first four months of 2003, the volume of credits in ROL maturing in over a year went up by nearly 40%.

The balance of the non-governmental long-term loans reached 22,576bn ROL. At the same time, the ROL-denominated short-term loans were worth 58,423bn ROL, only 16.4% more than at the end of 2002.

The actual growth of the ROL-denominated credits in the first four months was 16.8%, while loans in foreign currency gained 6.8% in real terms. Things were quite different for term deposits either ROL or foreign currency denominated, in the above-mentioned period, though. The term deposits saw only 3.6% nominal growth, below the inflation rate in the period, while the balance of foreign currency deposits shed more than 2,000bn ROL.

People preferred the foreign currency deposits, which progressed 7.72% against the 6.16% progress of the ROL-denominated term deposits. The population’s term placements kept above inflation but remained much below the level registered by lending.