TIRANA, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- The crediting activity to Albanian economy registered a drop in the first six months of 2017, official statistics released by the Albanian central bank showed Sunday.
The total loan portfolio in the end of June was worth 543.5 billion lek (4.8 bln U.S. dollars) or nearly 1 billion lek less than the same period of a year ago, according to data.
Economy experts here told local media Sunday that the decline in value of total crediting portfolio showed that a large part of new loans were actually renovation of overdraft or existing loans' restructuring.
They added that the total value of loans used by private sector in the country was not growing while they noted that businesses remained more problematic in terms of loan payment.
However, experts said that the drop in crediting during H1 was also related to the pre-election period. According to them, before elections the businesses are reluctant to undertake new investments and take new loans to finance their projects.
Since several months, the Bank of Albania has constantly urged the second-tier banks operating in Albania to boost their support to country's economy by providing more loans to businesses and households.
But such calls have been more effective in terms of households category as the banks here reported higher value of loans issued to households during H1.