On March 5th, 2015, the President of the Association of Banks in Lebanon held a conference at ABL premises showing the most prominent indicators of the Lebanese banking sector’s performance in 2014. He referred to the most important banks’ contribution to the progress of the national economy in strengthening the role of the state and institutions.
“Bank loans are the primary reason for the economic growth in Lebanon amidst a sharp drop in foreign direct investments and unchanged capital inflow, the President of the Association of Banks in Lebanon said.
He added that total bank loans to the private sector, both for residents and nonresidents, and not including business and commercial loans, have reached $51 billion at the end of 2014, an increase of $3.5 billion.
This happened as FDI to Lebanon fell, President Bassil told reporters. Citing examples, he said that total remittances from Lebanese have remained close to $7.5 billion, according to the World Bank, while FDI fell to $2.8 billion in 2013 compared to $3.7 billion in 2012.
He projected that the FDI in 2014 will continue in the same trend despite the lack of final data.
As far as the economy is concerned, Bassil said that GDP recorded a modest 1.5 percent growth as the prices of commodities, services and scale of salaries as well as interest and exchange rates remained unchanged in 2014.
Bassil added that the fall in the GDP growth since 2009 has affected the growth of deposits of Lebanese banks to some extent.
“The customer deposit growth in 2013 fell from nine percent to an average of six percent in 2014. But the $8.5 billion growth in deposits in last year was sufficient to cover the financial needs of both the public and private sectors,” he added.
Personal loans last year rose by 11.6 percent and these loans included education and housing loans. The Lebanese banking sector provided housing loans to 107,000 Lebanese families in different regions. ”
Following the conference, President and Board Members hosted a luncheon in honor of the Media.