Taiwan's non-performing loan ratio decreased slightly to 11.29 percent in December when calculated according to international accounting standards, according to statistics released yesterday by Taiwan's central bank.
The amount was down 0.24 percent from 11.53 percent in September 2001.
The central bank yesterday said that, as of December, the NT$1.64 trillion of bad loans included NT$1.09 trillion reported by domestic banks as non-performing and three-month overdue loans -- equivalent to 7.48 percent of outstanding credits. The remaining NT$559 billion (3.81 percent) in loans were overdue more than three months but less than six months and, therefore, classified by banks as "under surveillance."
The total amount of bank lending, however, increased by 1.05 percent to reach NT$14.53 trillion in December from November's NT$14.38 trillion. The jump in lending was the result of the stock market's recent rebound to raise the demand for capital, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. In addition, domestic banks tend to offer more loans at the year's end to boost their performance, the central bank added.
The central bank, however, also said in its statement that domestic banks -- which used their year-end surplus to write off bad loans -- have in this way decreased the country's non-performing loans. Also, the government's Financial Restructuring Fund (金融重建基金) has been effectively used to bail out several ill-performing banks and to offset their defaulted loans as well, the statement concluded.
The Cabinet's Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS, 主計處) is expected to announce an estimate for this year's economic growth rate today.
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