BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 17. Bank Respublika took first place in Azerbaijan in terms of the volume of soft loans granted to businesses from January through September 2023, the Entrepreneurship Development Fund under the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan told Trend.
Bank Respublika issued soft loans totaling 27 million manat ($15.8 million) to entrepreneurs from January through September 2023.
The second position in terms of business lending was taken by PASHA Bank (15.5 million manat or $9.1 million), while Rabitabank (10.6 million manat or $6.2 million) took the third place.
Expressbank (8.9 million manat or $5.2 million) and AccessBank (8.5 million manat or $4.9 million) were also in the top 5 in terms of lending volume.
The Azerbaijani Fund for the Development of Entrepreneurship provided funding for 2,726 investment projects in 2022. The fund distributed soft loans totaling 145.9 million manat ($85.8 million) in total.
According to the Foundation's information, 87.1 million manat ($51.2 million) of the issued loans are for the production of agricultural products, 37.3 million manat ($21.9 million) for the production and processing of industrial products, 9.1 million manat ($5.3 million) for tourism, and 12.4 million manat ($7.2 million) for other sectors.