Africa-Press – Eswatini. Private sector credit continues to be on the rise.
The Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) Governor Majozi Sithole in the monthly statistical release for the period between February and March reported that credit extended to the private sector amounted to E15.8 billion at the end of February 2022.
He said this depicted an improvement of 0.5 per cent month-on-month and 1.7 per cent year-on-year.
Sithole explained that the growth in private sector credit was driven by all credit categories, namely credit to other sectors of the domestic economy, households and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) as well as businesses.
He disclosed that credit to other sectors recorded an expansion of 1.4 per cent over the month under review and a contraction of 41.1 per cent at the end of February 2022.
“The month-on-month improvement was observed in credit to other financial corporations and public non-financial corporations, which rose by 1.54 per cent and 1.52 per cent, respectively.
In contrast, credit to local government decreased by 1.3 per cent month-on-month,” Sithole said.
Credit extended to businesses grew by 0.2 per cent month-on-month and 9.6 per cent year-on-year to settle at E6.9 billion at the end of February 2022.
Accounting for the increase in credit to businesses were the following subsectors; real estate (2.6 per cent), community, social and personal services (1.5 per cent), distribution and tourism (0.79 per cent) as well as manufacturing (0.77 per cent).
“This was on the back of declines in the following subsectors; agriculture and forestry (-7.7 per cent), mining and quarrying (-1.1 per cent), construction (0.6 per cent) as well as transport together with communication (-0.3 per cent),” Sithole said.
Sithole added that credit extended to households and NPISH was E7.7 billion at the end of February 2022, increasing by 0.5 per cent month-on-month and 6.5 per cent year-on-year.
Growth in credit to households was observed in other personal (unsecured) loans and motor vehicle loans which rose by 7.3 per cent to E3.2 billion and 1.1 per cent to E935.5 million, respectively.
Housing loans on the other hand, declined by 4.9 per cent over the month under review to settle at E3.6 billion.
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