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GCC businessmen urge banks to ease lending rates
Businessmen across the GCC have urged banking regulators in member-countries to ease lending rates to help the private sector tackle mounting recession.
The banks need to ensure that loans are less expensive, said the Federation of GCC Chamber of Commerce and Industry to the Central Banks across the region. This was mentioned in the set of recommendations they made at the end of meeting here yesterday.
The interest rates on the bank loans need to be brought on par with deposit margins. The deposit rates continue to remain low, while the lending margins remain high, the Federation said.
The meet was held by the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, together with the GCC Federation to discuss the impact of the global economic crisis on the region, and consider ways to tackle it.
The Federation also urged the regional banking industry to increase the quantum of lending to private sector for investment purposes. The consumer loan volumes must also be increased to accelerate economic activity, aiming to help dilute the ill-impact of recession.
Priority will have to be given to project financing by the GCC banking sector, the meet emphasized. It has called for stringent monitoring of banks and has underlined the need for banking industry and the regulators to focus more on transparency.
According to the federation, a common regional market and single monetary union would go a long way in creating a strong regional economic block, which would come in handy for the private sector to fight challenges posed by uncertain economic conditions when they arise.
The Federation has noted in its recommendations that a common regional market and a single monetary union will go a long way in creating a strong regional economic block, which would come in handy for private sector to fight challenges created by uncertain economic conditions as and when they arise.
According to Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassem Al Thani, the Head of QCCI and Essam bin Abdullah Fakhru, the Chairman of the Federation, the recommendations are practical and are capable of being implemented for the benefit of private sector.
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