Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Dec. 17 / Trend D. Azizov /
Amendments to the law "Securities market", allowing banks to issue corporate bonds of all forms of ownership entered into force in Uzbekistan.
Amendments to the Law were adopted by the Oliy Majlis (lower house of the parliament) in November and approved by the Senate (upper house of the parliament) in early December.
Up to now, only banks created in the form of open joint stock company had the right to issue bonds.
Moreover, banks are allowed to issue bonds till the authorized capital is formed, in the process of initial placing shares to enhance it. Previously, banks had the right to issue bonds only after full placing the shares.
According to the established order, the amount of bonds can not exceed the amount of own capital of the bank formed at the date of registration.
The amendments were worked out in accordance with the presidential decree, adopted in July 2009 "Additional measures to stimulate the increase of share of long-term loans of commercial bank to fund investment projects."
It was previously reported that the president signed the decree to strengthen the long-term resource base of banks, to issue long-term bank bonds in 2009-2010 for a period not less than five years placed among legal entities, for a total amount not less than 110 billion soums.
The National Bank is planned to issue bonds worth 35 billion soums, the Bank "Asaka" - for 20 billion soums, Uzpromstroibank - 10 billion soums, Agrobank, the Bank of Rural Construction, Mortgage Banking, Kapitalbank and Hamkorbank - 5 billion soums each , the rest of the banks - 20 billion soums.
In accordance with the document, legal entities are exempt from taxation of interest income derived from placement of debt securities of commercial banks for a term exceeding one year before January 1, 2015.
The Uzbek banking system is now represented by 30 banks, three of them are public, five - with the participation of foreign capital, 11 - join stock and 11 - private.
In 2008, total assets of Uzbek commercial banks increased by 30.1 percent - up to 12.065 trillion soums, credit portfolio - by 34 percent to 6.372 trillion soums. The total amount of deposits of legal and physical entities in banks increased by 50.7 percent - up to 5.772 trillion soums.
On Dec. 17, the official exchange rate is 1510.03 soums per $1.