Narrow Money Supply (M1) rose by 15.4% in October to RO 5.28 billion from RO 4.57 billion last year, while Broad Money Supply (M2) grew by 14.7% to RO 14.91 billion from RO 12.99 billion in October 2014, according to data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Oman’s foreign assets registered a healthy growth of 7.7% this October to touch RO 7.17 billion compared to RO 6.65 billion last year.
Private Sector Deposits in commercial banks increased by 8.1% to RO 11.78 billion as against RO 10.90 billion a year ago, while total credit at commercial banks posted a growth of 10.4%  taking the total value to over RO 18.31 billion from RO 16.58 billion recorded in October last year.
Average interest rate on total credit at commercial banks underwent a decline of 6.0% in October to reach 4.44%, from year-ago rate of 4.72%.
Indicating a higher purchasing power for the Omani Rial, the currency’s Effective Exchange Rate Index rose by 6.5% to 105.0 from last year’s index value of 98.6, says the NCSI data.