The deposits of the private sector in the commercial banks and Islamic windows reached to Omani Riyal 13,884.4 million by the end of October this year. It is an increase of 6.4% over the same period in the year 2016, when the deposits of the private sector was 13,048.1 million as revealed in the preliminary data of the Centre.
These statistics indicated a total 6.2% increase in loans of the banks by the end of October 2017. With this, the total amount of loans reached to Omani Riyal 23,267.9 million compared with 21,915.2 million during the same period in the year 2016. The average interest rate on total loans increased by 4.1%, at the end of October it was 5% compared to 4.8% during the same period of 2016. The total foreign assets of the Central Bank of Oman decreased by 17.4% to Omani Riyals 6,109.7 million from Omani Riyals 7,398.6 millionOmani riyals during the same period last year.
Total local liquidity increased by 3.7% to Omani Riyal 16,055.4 million by the end of October this year compared with Omani Riyal 15,484.2 million of the same period last year. The total value of traded cash at the end of October 2017 decreased by 1.9% to Omani Riyal 628,300,000 over Omani Riyal 660,500,000 of the same period in the year 2016.
In addition to this, the money supply in the narrow sense, which consists of total cash outside the banking system, in addition to current accounts and demand deposits in local currency decreased by 1.9% to Omani Riyal 5,025.2 million from 5,121,.1 million during the same period in 2016. It is worth mentioning that the actual exchange rate of Omani Riyal declined by 2.5% by the end of October this year to 101.3 points compared with 103.9 points during the same period in 2016.