Malaysian loan market to enter new growth phase

In the past, borrowers from the infrastructure related sectors dominated the Ringgit syndicated loan market, very much in line with the country's development. These project financing related loans tended to be fairly large in terms of size. Coupled with the strong credit appetite from banks pre Asian crisis, the syndicated loan market grew to its peak in 1997, with an outstanding amount of RM22.88 billion ($6 billion). As of March 2001, outstanding Ringgit syndicated loans stood at RM18.3 billion against the total loans in the banking system of RM417.3 billion.