Azerbaijan, Baku, 26 August / Trend corr. I.Khalilova / The Azerbaijani Government signed a contract with the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) to issue $17.9 loan for development of agriculture, Razim Valiyev, the general director of the State Agency on Agricultural Loans at the Agriculture Ministry, said on 26 August. It can be the last lax loan for Azerbaijan. In future, the country can expect only commercial financing form this financing institute.
"None of countries get such amount of loan from the IFAD. Generally, its loans do not exceed $10-$12mln," the general director said.
Signing ceremony was held in Italy. The Azerbaijani Ambassador to Italy inked the document on the behalf of the Azerbaijani Government. At present a loan agreement is passing domestic procedures and after it, head of the government will adopt this document, Valiyev said.
"After the adoption, a final cost of the project will be specified, the general director of the agency said. The project will be estimated before its realization because of price rise on irrigation, reclamation work and construction materials."
Since beginning of cooperation, Azerbaijan has got only lax loans from the IFAD with 40-year term on 20-year moratorium payment and 0.75% interests a year. Refusal of future loaning on these terms is explained with rates of economic development in the country. The Government and the IFAD initialed a project to develop regions in western direction of the country in December 2007 to get one more loan on such acceptable conditions. The fund allocated $1mln grant to develop this project. The lump cost of the project amounted to $30mln due the primary data.
The project will cover Shamkir, Tovuz, Agstafa and Gazakh, because so far these regions have not been covered by the projects, realized in the country in agriculture field. Loaning of farmers is envisaged in these regions and $4mln loan will be allocated with this purpose. A total of $1mln of them will be directed to micro loaning and $3mln to commercial loaning.
So far, the country has got three loans in $31.4mln amount from the IFAD.
The exchange rate for US dollar was AZN 0.8141 on 26 August.
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