Cambodia's Banking Sees 31 pct Lending Growth

Loan demands from Cambodia's banking industry had surged by 31 percent in the last twelve months thanks to the growing business activities in trade, real estate, agriculture and manufacturing, a central bank's senior official said Tuesday.

As of June 2012, the kingdom's 32 commercial banks had lent a total of 4.92 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 31 percent from 3.75 billion U.S. dollars at the end of June last year, Nguon Sokha, director general of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), said, citing the NBC's data.

She said that 32 percent of the loan went to trade, 16 percent to real estate, construction and mortgage, 10 percent to agriculture, 9 percent to manufacturing, and the rest went to tourism and services sector.

In terms of deposit, she said, the customers' deposits at the banks had reached 5.64 billion U.S. dollars by the end of June this year, up 23 percent from 4.58 billion U.S. dollars in last June.

"Generally, loan demand has increased in all sectors that reflect better business environment in the country," she said, adding that the banking industry in the last twelve months was very healthy.