Azerbaijan, Baku, May 4 / Trend A.Badalova/
The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Trade and Development Bank (ETDB) does not exclude possible involvement in major world and regional energy projects, President of the ETDB Hossein Ghazavi told Trend in an interview during his visit to Baku.
According to Ghazavi, energy, in particular, petroleum sector is one of the areas that ETDB is able to cover; however, the Bank's financial possibilities must be taken into account.
"The most important thing is that ETDB has professionalism and capability in technical aspects to take the lead and raise resources for such kind of project, even if they are big," Ghazavi said. "The Bank is not afraid of big projects," he added.
Ghazavi also stressed that the Bank can take the lead and initiate a sort of co-financing scheme, and try to encourage other financial partners in order to finance some energy projects.
The Bank's activity is not limited in participation in different economic sectors.
According to Ghazavi, the Bank's portfolio is diversified - 60 percent of the loans provided granted by Bank are being allocated to development projects, 40 percent - are being granted to the trade sphere.
The Economic Cooperation Organization Trade and Development Bank is a multilateral development bank established in August, 2005, by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, which are the founding members of the ECO.
The Ninth Summit of the organization, whose members are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, was held in May 2006 in Baku, while the eleventh Summit was held in Istanbul in December, 2010.
The Bank's paid-in capital amounts to approximately US$ 500 million, the authorized capital - about SDR 1 billion (about US$ 1.529 billion). Assets of the Bank are more than US$ 700 million.