ArmInfo.In Armenia, there was an increase in all lending sectors, except for industry, where the volumes decreased by 1.2%, making 508.9 billion drams. Chairman of the Union of Banks of Armenia Daniel Azatyan stated during a press conference on February 20.
According to him, the highest growth rates were registered in the construction sector - by 42.4% to 497.7 billion drams. At the same time, Azatyan noted that he does not see any risks in this regard, because there is a great potential for the growth of construction volumes outside of Yerevan. In particular, referring to discussions in the government on providing housing to forcibly displaced people from Artsakh, he noted that this initiative will give new impetus to housing construction, especially in the regions.
"And this growth will not create problems, but, on the contrary, will promote economic development and create new incentives," Azatyan expressed his opinion. If the construction sector is the leader in terms of growth rates, then the lion's share of the volume of credit investments falls on mortgage lending (23% of the total volume or 1.073 trillion drams), with an increase over the year of 26.4% and consumer lending (23% or 1.085 trillion drams), with a y-o-y growth of 21.2%. Speaking about the latter, Azatyan noted that in comparison with 2020 and 2021, when the banking system operated under coronavirus and war conditions, the share of non-performing loans in the consumer portfolio was quite high. But at the end of 2023, this figure dropped to 0.4%, against 0.5% in 2022.
Next in terms of lending volumes comes the trade sector - 573 billion drams, which exceeds the year-ago figure by 22%, the financial sector - 406.8 billion drams, with an increase of 9.3%, agriculture - 272.2 billion drams, an increase of 20.3% per annum, transport and communications - 105.5 billion drams, with a y-o-y increase of 22.5%. In total, the portfolio of credit investments of the Armenian banking system as of December 31, 2023 amounted to 5.2 trillion drams.
