Eurozone banks are toughening their requirements of prospective mortgage borrowers, a European Central Bank (ECB) survey published yesterday showed, although demand for home purchase loans continued to swell.
Credit standards — the boxes house-hunters have to check to receive a mortgage — tightened by 3 percent between January and last month, lenders said.
Meanwhile, “net demand for housing loans continued to increase in the first quarter, driven mainly by the low general level of interest rates,” the ECB said.
Although demand for other forms of consumer borrowing also grew, companies’ appetite for credit was only “stable” compared with the previous quarter, marking time after continuous increases since early 2015.
January’s round of the quarterly poll of almost 150 banks had forecast a slowdown in demand for loans, as weaker economic indicators pointed to slowing growth in the eurozone.
“Hard” data and “soft” pointers from surveys have both confirmed that the weaker expansion seen late last year has persisted into this year.
The ECB last month lowered its annual growth forecast for this year by 0.6 points to 1.1 percent — following in the footsteps of organizations such as the IMF.
It blamed a familiar litany of culprits, including uncertainty over Brexit and trade disputes between the US, China and the EU.
Frankfurt policymakers predict a resurgence in the second half, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos told European Parliament lawmakers last week.
Meanwhile, Portuguese Minister of Finance Mario Centeno — who leads regular Eurogroup meetings of treasury bosses from the single currency area — last week said that a Brexit deal and trade truces between Washington, Beijing and Brussels could help lift the clouds.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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