Muscat – In the first quarter of 2023, commercial banks in Oman experienced a surge in bank credits – touching RO24.288bn. This marks a significant increase from the previous year’s RO23.01bn, demonstrating an impressive growth of 5.5%.

The personal loan sector dominated the bank credit landscape, absorbing RO9.046bn or 37.2% of the total credit.

The Central Bank of Oman detailed this and other findings in its recently published quarterly statistical bulletin.

It reported that the services sector acquired RO2.0655bn, comprising 8.5% of the total credit. Not far behind, the construction and industrial sectors received RO1.8871bn and RO1.8815bn, making up 7.8% and 7.7% of the total bank credit respectively.

According to the bulletin, the electricity, transport, and water sectors collectively received RO1.6699bn, which represents 6.9% of the total credit in the first three months of 2023.

Additionally, the transport and communication sector accounted for 6.2% of the total credit volume, having received RO1.4972bn.

Other sectors such as financial institutions and mining attracted RO1.3416bn and RO1.1828bn respectively. In total, these sectors made up 5.5% and 4.9% of the bank credit.

CBO’s bulletin further specified the credit volumes received by various sectors. The import sector saw a receipt of RO932.8mn, while the government sector got RO710.7mn. These sums represent 3.8% and 2.9% of the total bank credit respectively.

Interestingly, sectors like agriculture and its related activities, and exports secured less credit.

They received RO54.3mn and RO36.1mn respectively, translating to 0.2% and 0.1% of the total bank credit for commercial banks.

The bulletin highlighted that other economic activities in the sultanate secured about RO655.4mn of bank credit, equating to 2.7% of the total.

Bank credit volume for non-residents was comparatively lower, standing at RO197.8mn or 0.8% of the total volume of bank credit.