YEREVAN, November 7. / ARKA /. The amount of loans provided by Armenia’s crediting organizations to residents, including placed deposits, factoring and leasing, grew by 4.5 percent in the third quarter to 144.4 billion drams at the end of September, the Central Bank of Armenia said in its review of the performance of credit institutions in the third quarter of 2012.

According to the review, the largest lending growth from the previous quarter was recorded in health care, which amounted to 23.4%, as the amount of loans grew to 58.8 billion drams.

The lending to service and catering sectors in the reporting period of time grew by 12.8% to 2.3 billion drams, lending to financial institutions and insurance companies rose by 11.4% to 42.8 billion drams and to the construction sector by 11.2% to 5.7 billion drams.

At the same time, the largest decline in lending in July-September was recorded in the mining industry - by 48% to 344 million drams, to water supply system- by 11.9% to 18.3 million drams and education - by 7.1% to 133.2 million drams.

The volume of consumer and mortgage loans granted by credit institutions in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter, increased by 11.2% and 7.2% to 12.7 billion drams and 16.5 billion drams respectively.

The largest amount of lending went to financial sector - 29.6%, 18 percent to agriculture, 12.8 percent to trade, 11.4 percent were issued as mortgage loans and 5.5 percent went to the manufacturing sector .

Some 8.7 percent were issued as consumer loans. The least lending was provided to water supply, scientific and technical activities, education, transport and communications, culture and recreation, and mining sectors.

On September 30, 2012 there were 32 registered crediting organizations in Armenia with 90 affiliates. ($ 1 - 407.93 drams).