YEREVAN, April 30, /ARKA/. The volume of credits provided by Armenian banks to resident clients grew by 5.9% or 43.7 billion Drams in the first quarter of 2010 to total 790.1 Drams at the end of March, the Central Bank of Armenia said in its review of banks’ performance in the first quarter of 2010.

Credits made available to transport and communications sector grew by 15.6% or 2.4 billion Drams to total 17.8 billion Drams, credits to trade sector grew by 10.6% or 15.5 billion Drams to total 161 billion Drams, credits to agricultural sector grew by 8.8% or 3.9 billion Drams to total 48.1 billion Drams.

The volume of credits provided to other sectors in the first three months of the year grew by 6.6% or 4.8 billion Drams to total 77.1 billion Drams. The volume of credits to construction sector grew by 6.2% to 57.5 billion Drams.

The volume of consumer credits grew by 4.6% or 6.3 billion Drams to 142.7 billion Drams, while credits to industrial sector grew by 4.3% or 6.3 billion Drams to 153.3 billion Drams. The volume of mortgage credits grew by 1.4% to 85.1 billion Drams and credits to financial sector grew by 0.2% to 47.5 billion Drams.

Trade sector accounted for the largest portion of credits-20.4%; it was followed by industrial sector- 19,4%, consumer credits-18.1% and mortgage credits - 10,8%. According to ARKA’s data, the list of three largest creditors is topped by ACBA Credit Agricole Bank- about 96 billion Drams; it is followed by Armbusinessbank -79.5 billion Drams and Bank VTB Armenia- 74.7 billion Drams. ($1 – 385.50 Drams).  -0-