Baku, Azerbaijan, June 21
By Maksim Tsurkov, Anvar Mammadov – Trend:
Azerbaijan and WB are in positive direction in the country’s economic reforms, the World Bank Regional Director for South Caucasus Mercy Tembon said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
She said a WB team is currently working with authorities in Azerbaijan on the economic reforms.
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Finances is working very closely with the Central Bank to address the issues of the financial sector, and the WB team is providing a technical assistance to them, she added.
“Azerbaijan, like all the countries in the South Caucasus region, is going through headwinds,” Tembon said. “And these headwinds are caused by decline in oil prices. There is also slowdown of other economies that are rather big economies like Russia and so on, trade has been affected and impacted by the economic crisis.”
“There has also been, as you know, the devaluation of the manat, which has impacted the economy [of Azerbaijan],” she noted. “The government is working very hard, I must say, to address these issues.”
“We had a team here [in Azerbaijan] in January that worked with the government and there are quite a number of reforms, particularly in the banking sector ensuring that there is deposit insurance, that the non-performing loans are being addressed, and also we had the issues relating to liquidity, which are all the things the government has been addressing,” she added. “I think we are in positive direction.”
Trend also interviewed Larisa Leshchenko, head of the WB Baku office, who said the establishment of the Financial Market Supervisory Body, and its decisions will bring positive results to Azerbaijan’s financial sector.
“If a new financial institution is established with professional staff and the financial institutions and consultants provide significant support, sooner or later this will bring positive results,” she said.
Leshchenko added that at present, any action of the Azerbaijani Central Bank is positive, as those actions contribute to the country’s adaptation to the challenges it is facing.
“There are certain problems and challenges in the financial sector, but we must not forget that many countries have experienced a similar situation,” she said.
“The system is being consolidated, cleaned up. These are normal processes,” Leshchenko said, adding that this is better than doing nothing.
“It is important to understand that any changes are always for the better, because it is important to advance,” she said. “It is possible to make a correct or maybe not so very correct decision, but the success is always achieved when some decisions are made and the process of adaptation to existing conditions is underway.”
Azerbaijan has been a WB member since 1992.
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