Baku, Azerbaijan, May 9
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Elman Rustamov, Chairman of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) received a delegation headed by Suma Chakrabarti, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the CBA report said.
During the meeting the sides discussed the prospects of developing the non-oil sector, as well as the country's banking sector.
Rustamov stressed the importance of Azerbaijan-EBRD cooperation.
"The new strategic directions are being determined in the cooperation," he said. "They are all aimed at accelerating the diversification and increasing the investment activity in the non-oil sector."
"We must pay special attention to the non-oil sector development, increase the funding and the amount of capital in this sector," he said.
Moreover, Rustamov informed the delegation about the macroeconomic indices, economic growth, economic diversification, non-oil sector development of Azerbaijan, as well as increasing of the role of the financial sector in the economic development.
"The situation in the Azerbaijani banking sector is stable," he said. "The capitalization of the sector is sufficient."
Chakrabarti stressed the importance of close cooperation between Azerbaijan and EBRD in the implementation of the current socio-economic development strategy and the possibility of implementing the new projects in the future.
EBRD has allocated $2.5 billion to finance 146 projects in various sectors of the economy since the beginning of cooperation with Azerbaijan. One of the EBRD main tasks is to ensure the stable development of Azerbaijan's non-oil sector by investing in small and medium private enterprises.
Azerbaijan is the largest recipient of the EBRD funds in the Caucasus, as well as one of the largest recipients - in the CIS and Eastern Europe. The EBRD invested 238 million euros in the implementation of 21 projects in Azerbaijan in 2014.
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