YEREVAN, February 24. /ARKA/. Armenian commercial banks provided last year more than 282.3 billion drams as trade financing loans, an increase of 47% from the beginning of the year, according to interim financial statements of the banks for the fourth quarter.

The leading bank in terms of trade financing loans was Ameriabank that issued a total of 37.9 billion drams, up from 17.9 billion drams in 2010. Ameriabank’s share in the total trade financing lending was 13.4%.

Ameriabank was followed by HSBC Bank Armenia that provided 33.9 billion drams as trade financing loans, up from 25.7 billion drams from a year earlier. Other leaders were ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank (more than 27.4 billion drams), VTB Bank (Armenia) (over 26.7 billion drams) and Inecobank (more than 22.3 billion drams).

Overall, according to the interim financial statements for the fourth quarter of 2011, the outstanding loan portfolio of all 21 banks rose to 1.260.1 trillion drams against 918.3 billion drams as of December 31, 2010. $1 - 389.34 drams).  -0-