The high lending rates in the crisis countries are, of course, due to the higher credit risk there, as can also be seen from the high risk of default and the proportion of non-performing loans in these countries. Some 25% of all loans extended to SMEs in the crisis countries are currently deemed to be non-performing.
In the case of GCC Countries the import bill from the Euro Area has not increased in percentage terms, which means that trade needs for the Euro within the GCC Countries did not grow, as a matter of fact it declined slightly from 21.84% of all imports in 2001 to 20.34% in 2005.