EBRD sees profits halve amid Turkey woes

EBRD sees profits halve amid Turkey woes
By Reuters
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LONDON (Reuters) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development saw its annual profits more than halve last year, it revealed on Wednesday, as it also announced plans to steadily increase its lending over the next three years.

The development bank, which invests in 38 economies from Morocco to Mongolia, said its net profit had fallen to 340 million euros last year from 772 million euros in 2017.

"These factors (for the drop in profits) included adverse conditions across equity markets and currency depreciations in a number of the emerging economies where the EBRD is active," the bank said in a statement.

"Provisioning charges rose on the back of developments in Turkey, where the economy slowed sharply amid a significant currency decline."

The EBRD's non-performing loans stood at 4.7 percent of its total loans, compared with a record low of 3.9 percent in 2017. It said the rise was also largely driven by events in Turkey.

It invested a total of 9.7 billion euros last year but has since carried out a review and estimates that it can top 10 billion euros in investments this year and increase that further in 2020 and 2021.

(Reporting by Marc Jones)

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