Kafalat loans drop by some 20% in 2012 compared to 2011 || Newspapers (Arabic)

Kafalat provides three types of loans through local banks.  The highest loan size is 600 million LBP or its equivalent in hard currency and is repayable over seven years with a 6 to 12 months grace period.  These loans benefit from a subsidy from the Central Bank secured by the national treasury and amounting to 7% of the loan amount with some exceptions on the interest rate.  Access to a Kafalt loan is contingent on the submission of a feasibility study.
Al Safir published a report on Kafalat’s loans in 2012 and noted a drop in number of some 19.42% (1025 projects supported in 2012 compared to 1272 supported in 2011).  This decrease is essentially due to the economic slowdown as a result of regional and local instability which affected most economic sectors in the country notably agriculture, industry, and tourism according the statistics of Kafalat and Credit Bank.
The total value of loans reached some 207.91 billion LBP or corresponding to new investments of approximately USD 128.45 million. In terms of targeted sectors, the highest percentages were recorded in agriculture 38.73% and then industry 28.34 %s, while tourism accounted for 177 projects representing 17.27%. On the other hand, 72 projects, worth some 14.32 billion LBP or USD 9.50 million were implemented in December 2012 whereas 90 projects were implemented in December 2011 of a net worth USD 13.06 million. Figures indicated that loans to the agriculture sector declined by 124 projects, from 521 projects in December 2011 to 397 projects in 2012, which represented a fall of 23.80 %.

Source: Al-Safir 23 January 2013