Tbilisi, Georgia: In December 2014, the volume of lending by commercial banks increased by 629.9 million GEL (5.1 percent) compared to the previous month, constituting 13.0 billion GEL by January 1, 2015.
The volume of loans provided in the national currency increased by 276.1 million GEL (5.8 percent) and the volume of loans in foreign currencies increased by 353.8 million GEL (4.7 percent). By the end of December 2014, commercial banks issued 1.5 billion GEL worth of national currency-denominated loans (9.8 percent, or 136.7 million GEL, more than in the previous month) to resident legal entities and 4.8 billion GEL worth of loans in foreign currencies (5.2 percent, or 238.2 million GEL, more than the previous month).
The biggest share of the total volume of lending to legal entities falls on trade – 30.7 percent. Compared with the previous month, in December 2014 the volume of loans provided for trade increased by 12.2 percent, or 212.2 million GEL, and reached 2.0 billion GEL by January 1, 2015. The share of loans provided to the industrial sector constituted 25.0 percent of all loans to legal entities, amounting to 1.6 billion GEL by January 1, 2015 (9.3 percent, or 135.6 million GEL, more than in December 1, 2014); 6.7 percent falls on construction, amounting to 423.3 million GEL (an increase of 2.6 percent, or 10.9 million GEL). Therefore, 62.3 percent of the total volume of lending to legal entities falls on only three sectors – industry, construction and trade.
