Gulf Bank KSC plans to maintain its “aggressive” provisions against bad loans in 2011, as Kuwait’s second-biggest lender by market value recovers from $1.3 billion in losses on derivatives trading, said chief executive Michel Accad, according to Bloomberg.

“We need to continue to be aggressive because I really don’t think it’s the end of the crisis in the region,” Accad said in an interview Tuesday at the bank’s headquarters in Kuwait City.

General projections for next year show that specific provisions will likely be reduced over time. “The provisions of this year will not be very much different from last year” and are predicted to be of the same magnitude, Accad said.

The bank’s total credit provisions last year were $386 million, according to Accad.