February 2 (SeeNews) - The share of bad loans in the Albanian banking system dropped to 18.2% of all loans in December, from 20.4% in November, the governor of the country's central bank said.
''The drop reflects the combined effects of the improvement of the economic situation, credit restructuring and non-performing loans write-off from balance sheets," Gent Sejko said on Wednesday during a news conference.
The effects of credit restructuring by some banks are reflected with some delay in the financial reports, Sejko explained.
In November Albanian banks' credit portfolio grew by 3.4%, the governor said adding that lending is expected to improve further in 2017.
Some two years ago non-performing loans (NPLs) represented 25% of all loans extended by Albanian banks, the central bank governor recalled.