TIRANA, June 28 – The payment of some Euro 500 million in accumulated unpaid bills to the private sector during the past couple of years has had little impact on reducing non-performing loans and boosting demand for new loans.
The key trade and construction sectors had the highest levels of non-performing loans in 2015, shows a central bank report.
The “trade, repair of cars and household appliances” group which hold the main 25 percent credit share had a non-performing loan level of about 29 percent at the end of 2015.
The long-ailing construction sector which holds a smaller 9.2 percent share in lending had the highest NPL levels of 38 percent.
NPLs, a key barrier which continues holding lending standards tight, dropped by 4.6 percent to 18.2 percent or 106.7 billion lek (Euro 765 million) in 2015 mainly due to a considerable write-off of bad debt.
Banks wrote off 26.6 billion lek (Euro 191 million) in 2015 after a new regulation requiring the mandatory write-offs of loans that have spent three years in the “loss” category came into force at the beginning of 2015.
