June 7 (SeeNews) - Total loans to households in Croatia rose by 2.2% on the year and by 0.6% on the month to over 120 billion kuna ($19.2 billion/16.2 billion euro) at the end of April, the local unit of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) said on Thursday.
Loans to households reached their highest level since January 2016, Raiffeisenbank Austria Zagreb (RBA) said in a market report.
Household loans in local currency continued to grow, reaching 50% of total loans at the end of April, up 6.0 percentage points year-on-year.
Housing loans made up 44% of total loans to households, while their value increased by 1.1% on the year to 52.6 billion kuna at the end of April. They were followed by general purpose cash loans with a 37% share and a rise in value of 7.8% year-on-year to 44.8 billion kuna.
RBA noted that the recovery of total lending to households in the year ahead will be modest, especially taking into account the overall indebtedness of the sector and the structural weaknesses of the labour market.
(1 euro=7.38887 euro)