Crisis, business in difficulties

The official data of Bank of Albania show that the bad loan for business increased with 63% in annual terms, a pace that is twice as big as the bad loans of individuals. According to the data, the banks have not received 20.8% of the money that they have loaned last year.

This means that unpaid business loans only have reached more than 800 million USD, or 7% of the GDP. But what are the most difficult branches? Beyond the tourist boom, the official data show that tourism is one of the sectors with most financial difficulties.

According to the bank, the bad loans in hotels and restaurants increased with 2.3 times within one year, which means that for every 100 ALL borrowed from banks, the hotel and restaurant businesses have failed to return 45.3 ALL.

The second most problematic sector is that of real estates, which has been paralyzed due to the fall of sales and public investments in infrastructure. According to the official data, the bad loans in construction is going to 30%, almost 1.5 times more than the average.

Business invites banks to review interests

The businessmen say that the strong increase of bad loans is connected with the fall of sales and liquidity in the market.

“Many local production industries, while looking for a market at any cost, due to the lack of massive liquidity in the market, realize sales that are considered “not matured”, in which the goods are delivered but the money has not been paid”, declared Gjergj Buxhuku, representative of the Confindustry.
 
The inability of the business to pay the loans of the banks has deepened even more during this year. In the first six months, the unpaid loan increased with 2.43 percent and most of it derives from business again. In these conditions, Luan Bregasi says that it is indispensable for banks to implement a new policy for businesses, that of differencing the enterprises that suffer the crises with those that have been managed badly.

“By dividing them in this way, I think that the enterprises that are in difficulties because of the economic crisis must enter in dialogue with the leaders of these businesses and companies for seeing the possibility of rescheduling the loans, decreasing the interest rates from enterprises that suffer bad management. Those that suffer ba management are another group of enterprises that should be treated in another way, and that could also be executed according to the rules of this agreement”, Bregasi declared.

The increase of bad loans is also penalizing the real economy, because the banks are giving no new loans. Official data show that by the end of June, the annual loan increase was only 8.2%, the lowest in the history and it has also deteriorated in the first six months.
 

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