The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) has prepared the final settlement agreements the bank will sign by the end of this week with Imac For Paper Manufacturing Company to settle its EGP 800 million worth of debt. Sources told Amwal Al Ghad that Imac For Paper Manufacturing Company paid EGP 120 million as settlement deposit. The agreement states that the remaining value of the debt will be repaid in half-yearly installments for 7 years, sources added. Such move came as part of NBE's plan to reduce its non-performing loans portfolio to EGP 6 billion in the current fiscal year, down from EGP 7.4 billion at the end of last March. The bank finalized 2600 settlement agreements of about EGP 22.6 billion worth of debts by the end of March, out of EGP 30 billion, the total value of bad debts in 2008. The delinquency rate registered 8% and the bank targets to reduce such rate to 3% in the upcoming years. NBE said it has 360 delinquent customers, and most of which are young customers, as there are only 6 senior customers who are delinquent.
