Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 25
Trend:
Amendments to Azerbaijan's law "On the 2015 State Budget", stipulating an increase in the upper limit of the country's domestic state debt in 2015 by three billion manats, were approved by President Ilham Aliyev's decree Nov. 25.
Under the amendments, the domestic state debt's limit increases from 1.5 billion manats to 4.5 billion manats to finance a number of state projects as part of execution of presidential decrees, dated July 15 and Aug. 7, 2015.
These amendments apply from July 15, 2015.
Additional funds are required for improvement measures in preparation for the privatization of state-owned shares in the International Bank of Azerbaijan, and therefore the Aqrarkredit CJSC issued state-guaranteed bonds.
Prospectus of emission of the guaranteed interest bonds by the non-bank credit organization Aqrarkredit, totaling three billion manats, was registered Sept. 1 by the State Committee for Securities of Azerbaijan.
The bonds have been issued in connection with the transfer of a part of bad assets of the International Bank of Azerbaijan to be managed by the Aqrarkredit.
Thus, these assets will be gradually eliminated from the bank's balance sheet in exchange for liquid funds, to be provided by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.
The Central Bank has already transferred to the International Bank some two billion manats out of the envisaged three billion.
Official exchange rate for November 25 is 1.0509 AZN/USD.