Figures released by Kafalat show that the number of issued loan guarantees stood at 19 by February 2019, compared to 75 issued in the same period last year. The overall value of the guarantees also contracted from $10.25M in the first two months of 2018 to $2.34M by February 2019.
By February, the top three beneficiaries of Kafalat guarantees were the industrial, tourism, and agricultural sectors, as each grasped 42.11%, 26.32%, and 21.05%, respectively of total guarantees.
The number of Kafalat guarantees granted for the industrial sector fell significantly from 36 guarantees by February 2018 to 8 guarantees by February 2019 .Also, the number of guarantees for the agricultural and tourism sectors decreased from 24 and 13 in the first two months of 2018 to 4 and 5 in the first two months of 2019, respectively.
Moreover, the geographical allocation of Kafalat loans in the beginning of 2019 revealed that the region receiving the largest number of guarantees was the Mount Lebanon region with a share of 52.63% of total guarantees followed by shares of 15.79% for the Bekaa region and 10.53% for Beirut and the South.
In the region of Mount Lebanon, the number of guarantees dropped from 36 by February 2018 to 10 by February 2019, while the guarantees granted in the Bekaa region also dropped from 10 to 3 over the same period. In Beirut, the number of guarantees reached 2 by February 2019, down from 8 in the same period last year.
Value and Number of Kafalat Guarantees Issued by February of each year (in $M)
Source: Kafalat