Skopje, 9 December 2022
The growth of green lending in the third quarter of 2022 accelerates, reaching 17.7%. Green loans are intended for projects that support sustainable, ecological purposes, or purposes that contribute to the green transition in society, such as the development of new ecological technology. In the third quarter, the share of green loans in total loans increased from 2.7% in the previous quarter, to 3.1%, i.e. by 0.4 percentage points. Although the data show favorable developments, still there is room for further increase in the share of green in total loans.
In the third quarter, green corporate and household loans reached Denar 12,876 million, i.e. they increased by Euro 31.5 million for one quarter. The growth of green lending is mostly due to corporate loans, which account for 5.8% of the total corporate loans. The growth of green loans to households is smaller and they account for only 0.7% of total household loans.
The National Bank activities aimed at encouraging and increasing the awareness of domestic creditors about financing “green” projects, i.e. the support of investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable agriculture and technological innovations, contributed to increasing green lending by almost 80% at the end of 2019. In the same period, loans increased also as a share in total loans by 0.9 percentage points.
In September 2022, the National Bank adopted a Decision amending the Decision on reserve requirement, which encourages lending to projects related to domestic production of electricity from renewable sources. In this way, in conditions of energy crisis and strong growth of the global prices of electricity, the National Bank contributes to mitigating the pressures and the structural problems in the economy, and the measure also supports “green finance” and sustainable financing.
Through a series of other activities, our central bank contributes to encouraging green financing. Development of a strategy for encouraging green financing is also under way, which among other things envisages preparation of guidelines for the banks' operations in the field of green finance, including for transparent financing. Green portfolio of securities in foreign reserves is also built, and from this year the National Bank also established a regular system of collecting more detailed data on green financing. To assess the resilience of the banking system to climate changes, regular stress-tests are also planned.
Climate changes have a negative impact on the economic growth and inflationary pressures, especially in less developed economies, therefore an increasing number of central banks consider green financing as part of their mandate.