Azerbaijan draws over 43 per cent of WB loans

Azerbaijan, Baku, March 12 / Trend A.Akhundov /

By January 1, 2012 Azerbaijan held with the World Bank (WB) negotiations on 55 projects for funding of which loan agreements totaling more than $3.054 billion were signed, the government report on the outcome of 2011, presented to Parliament said on Monday.

"Today the majority of investment projects being implemented in Azerbaijan are financed by the World Bank," the report says.

At present the implementation of 34 projects worth $848.3 million has already completed, and now implementation of 21 projects worth more than $2.206 billion continues. As of January 1, 2012 WB loans worth over $ 1.320 billion were used, which represents 43.2 percent of total loans.

In accordance with the schedule, by January, 1 Azerbaijan returned $49.1 million of principal debt on WB loans.

In addition to these loans, in 1995-2011 the WB provided Azerbaijan with 44 grants totaling $41.05 million. Implementation of 38 grant projects of them totaling $30.228 million has already been completed; the implementation of six projects with a total sum of 10.823 million is still ongoing.