* No growth this year in Kazakh banks' loan portfolio
* Bank profits will be modest in 2010 - regulator
* Strong banking recovery needs economic growth (Adds detail, quotes)
By Maria Gordeyeva
ALMATY, Sept 21 (Reuters) - A fledgling recovery among Kazakhstan's crisis-hit banks will deliver only modest profits this year and the sector's overall loan portfolio may shrink due to a lack of borrowers, the country's financial regulator said.
Kazakhstan, central Asia's largest economy, was among the first and hardest hit by the global financial crisis and is only now beginning to recover as growth picks up and several banks emerge from lengthy debt restructuring programmes. This alone will not be enough to ensure steady growth for Kazakhstan's banking system, the head of the country's Financial Supervision Agency (FSA) told Reuters in an interview.
"The problem is not in the banking sector's liquidity but in the absence of a proper number of solvent borrowers," said Yelena Bakhmutova, chairman of the FSA's management board.
Bakhmutova said the banking sector's loan portfolio had shrunk by slightly more than 5 percent since the start of the year. Even an acceleration toward the end of the year would produce a loan portfolio similar to that seen in 2009, she said.
She said she expected the loan portfolio at best to be flat this year. At worst, it would decline by 3 percent year-on-year.
Cheap borrowing abroad and massive loans to the construction sector fuelled breakneck growth in Kazakhstan's banking sector before the crisis. Relying too heavily on one sector again would be a mistake, Bakhmutova said.
"There must be other sectors (for investment), but we don't have them yet. We all depend on economic recovery," she said.
Kazakhstan expects gross domestic product to expand by 5 percent in 2010. The economy, which relies heavily on the export of oil and metals, grew 1.2 percent in 2009 after averaging around 9 percent annually over the last decade.
MODEST BORROWING, CAUTIOUS INVESTORS
Those banks which defaulted last year have since completed restructuring programmes, including BTA, the country's third-largest bank by assets, its subsidiary Temirbank and the country's No. 6 lender Alliance Bank.
Bakhmutova said she expected risk provisions in Kazakhstan to remain elevated next year, given the generally uncertain outlook for 2011.
"I believe most of the banks will show modest profits, primarily through lowering their provisions," Bakhmutova said. Even low profits would be a good sign to investors, she said.
But she added: "Our banks will pay no dividends (for 2010)."
She said Kazakh banks should not hope to borrow cheaply abroad in the remainder of 2010. But if there were affordable loans on offer, some local banks -- especially medium-sized ones -- could borrow to improve their liquidity structure, she said.
Bakhmutova said that, despite the recent economic downturn, investors were still interested in Kazakhstan.
The main assets up for sale are the state's stakes in the restructured banks. Sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna has repeatedly said it wants to sell its share in the nationalised BTA, Alliance and Temirbank.
Bakhmutova warned against hasty sell-offs that could slash the price of these assets. She said Alliance and TemirBank could be sold in 2011, while the sale of BTA could take longer.
State-controlled Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, is widely expected to bid for BTA. Samruk-Kazyna, which controls BTA, has said it is not in a hurry to sell its stake in the bank because it wants to consider all alternative offers. (Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Robin Paxton and Michael Shields)