The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said the volume of credit facilities granted by banks operating in the local market to their clients during July decreased by 1.9% to EGP 1.819trn, compared to EGP 1.854trn in June.
Credit facilities are loans provided by banks to their clients based on documentary credits and letters of guarantee that were opened to cover import operations.
According to its monthly report issued on Tuesday, the CBE said the private sector accounted for about 60.3% of the total non-governmental credit facilities granted by banks to various economic sectors during July.
The CBE pointed out that the industrial sector came first among the sectors financed by banks, where it received about 33.2% of the total facilities, followed by the services sector, which accounted for 26.8%, then the trade sector by 10.9%.
The agriculture sector, as usual, received the lowest share of credit facilities granted by banks, accounting for only 1.6% until the end of July.
According to the CBE, there are other sectors, which were not elaborated, but included the household sector and got about 27.5% of the size of these facilities.
In the same context, the CBE revealed that bank’s lending balances fell by EGP 36.189bn to reach EGP 1.803trn in July, compared to EGP 1.840trn in June.
The CBE said the decline in banks’ loan portfolio came on the back of the decline in loans granted to the government by about EGP 34.508bn, to EGP 506.278bn in July, compared to EGP 540.786bn in June.
Loans granted to non-government entities fell by EGP 1.681bn to EGP 1.297tn in July from EGP 1.299tn in June.
In a related context, the CBE revealed that banks’ investments in government treasury bills increased by about EGP 12.8bn during August to reach EGP 684.8bn compared to EGP 671.99bn at the end of July.
On the other hand, the CBE said that the total deposits with banks declined during July 2019 by about EGP 8.306bn to reach EGP 3.999tn compared to EGP 4.007tn in June.
The decline came on the back of a decline in government deposits by EGP 26.814bn to EGP 583.638bn in July, compared to EGP 610.452bn in June.
In contrast, non-governmental deposits increased by EGP 18.508bn to reach EGP 3.415tn in July, compared to EGP 3.396tn in June.
Excerpts:
Banks’ investments in treasury bills increased to EGP 684.8bn at the end of August, compared to EGP 671.99bn in July
