Growth of bad loans stopped

Veroljub Dugalic, the secretary general of the Association of Banks of Serbia, said Wednesday that the situation had stabilized over the past few months and that the growth of bad loans was stopped.

He specified at a press conference that the overall level of bad debts was at 20.7% with bad loans to citizens and companies accounting for 10.4% and 25.8%, respectively.

- This is the first small encouragement, an encouraging information that these bad loans are not growing any more - Dugalic stressed and added it was the first step towards systemic solving of the problem.

He noted that the situation in 2013 had been much less favorable because the overall level of bad loans at the end of October 2013 had been at 24.5% with bad debts of juristic persons accounting for 31.5% of all debts.

When asked to comment on the announcement by Finance Minister Dusan Vujovic that the investment fund KKR offered a solution adapted to fit concrete situation and conditions in Serbia, which is to "attack" the management of companies that do not repay loans, he said it was a correct way to eliminate the cause of the problem that lied in the economy and not in banks.