BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 18. Azerbaijan's Bank Respublika JSC ranked first in terms of concessional loans issued to businesses from January through June 2023, Azerbaijan's Entrepreneurship Development Fund under the Ministry of Economy told Trend.
Bank Respublika issued concessional loans worth 14.2 million manat ($8.3 million) to entrepreneurs in the reporting period.
Meanwhile, PASHA Bank ranked second (12.7 million manat, or $7.4 million), and RabitaBank took third place (six million manat, or $3.5 million).
The top five banks also included AccessBank (5.4 million manat, or $3.18 million) and Expressbank (4.3 million manat, or $2.5 million).
The Entrepreneurship Development Fund financed 2,726 investment projects in 2022. The overall amount of concessional loans totaled 145.9 million manat ($85.8 million).
According to the fund, out of the overall loans, 87.1 million manat ($51.16 million) were issued to agricultural output, 37.3 million manat ($21.9 million) to industrial production and processing, 9.1 million manat ($5.3 million) to tourism, and 12.4 million manat ($7.28 million) to other industries.