BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 17. The Asian Development Bank continues to support Azerbaijan private sector through various initiatives, Candice McDeigan, ADB Country Director in Azerbaijan, told Trend.
"In 2022, ADB partnered with the Ministry of Economy to launch a technical assistance project with a $1.2 million grant to support the Government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) agenda and increase private sector involvement in infrastructure projects," she said.
According to the country director, this technical assistance has built the capacity of concerned government agencies and helped develop legislative enactments.
Meanwhile, in the finance sector, ADB continued to support the development of the Microfinance Strategy and Financial Inclusion Framework in the country.
"We also partnered with the Central Bank of Azerbaijan to improve consumer protection principles. Last year, we partnered with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Debt Management Agency to enhance debt management capacity and update the Medium- and Long-Term Debt Management Strategy. We provided policy recommendations to strengthen fiscal debt management practices during crises to improve social services, mandatory health insurance, and healthcare service delivery," McDeigan explained.
In addition, as ADB country director pointed out, under the Integrated Fiduciary Risk Assessments and Strengthening Country Systems technical assistance, the bank supported the State Service for Antimonopoly and Consumer Market Control in reviewing the draft new public procurement laws and provided recommendations for further improvement.
To date, ADB has committed 65 public sector loans, grants, and technical assistance totaling $3.7 billion to Azerbaijan. Cumulative loan disbursements to Azerbaijan amount to $3.93 billion. These were financed by regular and concessional ordinary capital resources. ADB’s ongoing sovereign portfolio in Azerbaijan includes 2 loans and 1 sovereign guarantee worth $856.8 million.