According to Kafalat, the number of loan guarantees dropped from 179 guarantees by May 2018 to 37 loans by May 2019. The overall value of the guarantees also plunged from $23.12M in the same period of 2018 to reach $4.42M by May 2019.
The top three beneficiaries of Kafalat guarantees in the first 5 months of the year were: the industrial sector grasping 40.5% of the total followed by the tourism sector and agricultural sector with 27% and 24.3%, respectively. Even though the industry sector took up the largest share of guarantees, the number of loan guarantees to the sector dropped from 67 loans by May 2018 to 15 loans by May 2019. The issued guarantees for each of the tourism and agricultural sectors also slid from 39 and 64 to 10 and 9, respectively.
Regionally, the largest number of guarantees extended was in Mount Lebanon which grasped 54.05% of total loan guarantees, followed by 21.62% and 10.81% in of the Bekaa and Beirut, respectively. The total number of guarantees stood at 20, 8, and 4 in Mount Lebanon, the Bekaa and Beirut regions, respectively.
Value & Number of Kafalat Loan Guarantees by May (in $M)
Source: Kafalat