Azerbaijan, Baku, 12 May / corr. Trend I. Khalilova/ The National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA) has proposed the Azerbaijani government to finance the development of agriculture within the food security program, Rufat Aslanli, the deputy chairman of the NBA Board of Directors said on 12 May.
The proposals envisage the establishment of a new institute to finance all cycles of agricultural production beginning from irrigation by farmers up to the establishment of sales outlets.
"At present, there is a need in Azerbaijan to establish a bank financing agriculture in Azerbaijan," said Aslanli. "For that it would be expedient to benefit from the current infrastructure my updating it, but this decision depends on the government," he said.
[At present, there is Agrar-Credit non-bank credit organization in Azerbaijan who has appealed NBA to change its status into agricultural bank].
NBA offers its support farmers through loans subsidized by the government which is possible through credit cooperatives, specialized development bank in the rural areas, bank for reforms and others.
According to Aslanli, Azerbaijan is not first country which is solving such issues.
"There is very effective model of several countries who have achieved positive results in developing agriculture, for instance, in financing agricultural production," he said. A year ago we raised an issue even before the international organizations began to speak about food security, he said.
NBA has studied the experience of separate countries independent in food security and it has worked out special proposals. Apart from this, NBA conducted intensive discussions with the international finance institute - EBRD, German bank KfW and International Finance Cooperation.
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