System loan growth rose to 1.5% M-o-M in March, compared to 0.3% M-o-M in February, according to statistics published by the Central Bank of Kuwait last Thursday. Loan growth was driven by a pick-up in retail loan growth to 2.6% M-o-M (from 0.5% in February), in addition to flat corporate loans M-o-M, compared to a 0.7% M-o-M decline in February, with growth in both trade and real estate & construction segments recovering M-o-M. On a Y-o-Y basis, total loan growth accelerated to 8.4% Y-o-Y in March, up from 7.5% in February. Retail loans increased 12.4% Y-o-Y in March (from 11.5% Y-o-Y in February), while corporate loan growth slowed to 5.1% Y-o-Y in March (down from 5.4% Y-o-Y in February). Deposit growth was strong M-o-M at 4.0% in March, up from 2.2% M-o-M in February, driven by private sector deposit growth at 4.4% M-o-M in March (compared to 2.2% in February). On a Y-o-Y basis, total deposits rose 5.6% in March, up from 3.4% Y-o-Y in February, on higher growth for both private and public sector deposits, with government deposit growth particularly strong in March at 15.0% Y-o-Y (compared to 7.3% in February). The loan-to-deposit ratio further fell to 82.3% in March, compared to 84.3% in February and 85.6% in end-2015, suggesting that liquidity is not tightening in the Kuwaiti system. (Central Bank of Kuwait, Elena Sanchez-Cabezudo, Rajae Aadel)