Kafalat loans extended to SMEs reach $44.5 mln

Figures released by the Kafalat Corporation showed that loans extended to small and medium companies under the guarantee of Kafalat reached $44.5 million in the first four months of 2012, down by 15.5 percent from $52.7 million a year earlier. The number of loan guarantees totaled 328 during the aforementioned period of 2012, dropping by 15.2 percent from 388 guarantees in the same period of 2011. Mount Lebanon accounted for the majority of guarantees extended in the first four months of 2012, with 139 guarantees, or 42.4 percent of the total, followed by the Bekaa area with 51 guarantees, the equivalent of 15.6 percent of the total, the North with 49 guarantees (14.9 percent), the South with 43 guarantees (13.1 percent), Nabatieh with 24 guarantees (7.3 percent), and Beirut with 22 guarantees (6.7 percent). As for the distribution of guarantees extended by sector, the industrial sector captured the lion’s share of extended guarantees with some 126 guarantees, or 38.4 percent of the total. From The DailyStar