GERMAN BANKS' SHIP LENDING TOPS €100 BILLION

摘要

German banks continued to increase the shipping credit volumes during the last two years. The combined total for the eleven leading providers climbed from €74.8bn at end 2005 to €98bn at end 2007 (see table) This is a considerable rate of increase - 31% in two years - especially when taking into account the devaluation of the US Dollar which is the currency for a large portion of the banks business. Two additional finance institutions, i.e. Dresdner Bank and Landesbank Hessen-Thuringen, are included for the first time in the table as each of them reached a shipping credit portfolio of €2bn or more. Since mid May 2008 all activities of SHL/Deutsche Bank (DB-shipfinancing) are now consolidated under the name of Deutsche Shipping. Total volumes of German shipping finance are certainly more than €100bn when including a number of other banks with smaller portfolios also involved in lending to the shipping industry. Although there are no reliable figures about credit volumes on other markets available, it is estimated that German banks hold at least a third of the total volume on the worldwide shipping finance market.