Azerbaijan, Baku, November 21 /Trend, N. Ismailova /
The Azerbaijani Microfinance Organizations Association (AMOA) provides support to two leasing companies to help them expand relations with investors, AMOA Executive Director Jalya Hadjiyeva told Trend on Monday.
Currently, only two leasing companies - Qavqaz Leasing and Finans Leasing - are members of the AMOA and have asked the Association to cooperate over development of micro-leasing products.
"Extremely weak products are currently presented on the market so it is essential to develop new, more claimed products on competitive basis," she said.
Hadjiyeva noted that the AMOA has already arranged a meeting with investors for one of the companies.
"We plan to intensify work in this direction next year. Meeting with investors will be conducted, and the early results of joint work have already been obtained," Hadjiyeva said.
AMOA-developed products will be in people's demand as current terms of leasing services do not differ from credit terms though, as the practice of other countries illustrates, they should be more profitable than the latter. Twenty-seven organizations are currently members of the AMOA.
State-owned leasing company Aqrolizinq and 22 private leasing companies and banks specialized in the provision of leasing services are operational in the country at the moment.
Elchin Akhmedov, Head of the Association of Leasing Companies of Azerbaijan (ALCA), told Trend earlier that the potential of Azerbaijani leasing market is valued at $700 million - $800 million, more than a triple increase against the existing value of the market.
As of January 1, 2011, the value of leasing portfolio in the country was equivalent to $187 million compared to $208 million and $209 million in 2009 and 2008, respectively.