ALMATY, Kazakhstan, June 30. The Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) is open to the participation of Azerbaijan and Türkiye, Chairman of the Board of the EDB Nikolay Podguzov told Trend on the sidelines of the bank's Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“There are plans for expansion. Probably the immediate plans are for Uzbekistan to join the bank. And we, I hope, will complete these procedures this year and begin financing projects. As for Azerbaijan and Türkiye, taking into account the geographical location of these countries, they are in Eurasian region. They are also neighbors of the bank's members. Taking into account the very significant volumes of trade turnover between Türkiye and Azerbaijan and the countries of the Eurasian region, the participation of these countries in the Eurasian Development Bank is certainly important and would be useful both for the countries already in the bank and for Azerbaijan and Türkiye. We are open to the participation of Azerbaijan and Türkiye,” he said.
According to Nikolay Podguzov, decisions on countries' accession are made at the shareholder level.
“To do this, we need to receive appropriate applications from countries about their intention to join the bank and then we could begin official procedures for joining. But we are ready, the perimeter of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Türkiye with the countries of the region allows us to quickly prepare a list of current joint projects and I believe that we could successfully implement them if these countries were members of the Eurasian Development Bank,” he said.
EDB is an international financial organization that carries out investment activities aimed at developing economies, trade and economic relations and integration processes in the countries of the Eurasian region.
Currently, the bank's member-shareholders are six countries - Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.