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MANILA,
Oct. 6 (PNA) – Loans extended by Foreign Currency Deposit Units (FCDU)
of banks in the country jumped by 40.4 percent to US$ 4.6 billion in
the second quarter of 2008 against year-ago’s US$ 3.3 billion.
The growth is about US$ 1.3 billion during the period, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Friday.
Quarter-on-quarter, the figure grew by 4.3 percent or about US$ 187 million from end-March 2008’s US$ 4.4 billion.
BSP
Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. attributed the growth in the second
quarter against the previous quarter's to the US$ 201 million over-all
net availment of non-resident borrowers.
The central bank defines the over-all net availment as the “excess of new loan availments over principal repayments.
Of
the FCDU’s outstanding loans, 56 percent had medium to long-term
maturities or had a term of more than one year while the balance of 44
percent are short-terms or have a maturity of up to one year.
The private sector accounts for 97 percent of the loan availments while the public sector had a share of three percent.
BSP said Philippine residents’ share to the FCDU loans is 78 percent while the remaining 22 percent are held by non-residents.
Loans
to commodity and service exporters to the total portfolio is about 21
percent followed by utility firms at 19 percent, and producers or
manufacturers including oil companies at 16 percent.
FCDU
is a unit of banks in the country allowed by the BSP to conduct foreign
currency-denominated transactions like deposit-taking and lending.
Meanwhile,
FCDU deposit liabilities grew by seven percent or about US$ 1.4 billion
after it reached US$ 20.5 billion in the second quarter of the year
from the previous quarter’s US$ 19.1 billion.
BSP said the over-all loans-to-deposits ratio got better to 23.1 percent from end-March 2008’s 21.7 percent. (PNA)
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