Azerbaijan, Baku, July 30 / Trend A. Badalova, A.Akhundov /
The active portfolio of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) in Azerbaijan includes 18 signed operations in the total amount of over 93 million euros at the end of June 2012, Andrey Kondakov, President of BSTDB said in an interview with Trend.
"Azerbaijan ranks 5th in the Bank's overall portfolio, following the BSTDB major shareholders of Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Bulgaria, up from the 6th place at the end of 2011," Kondakov said.
He mentioned that in 2012, the Bank signed 3 operations totaling 24 million euros supporting small business and real estate development in Azerbaijan.
Kondakov said that in 2012, BSTDB is going to further strengthen the support for development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the country, as well as to provide trade finance facilities to promote export and import transactions of Azerbaijani businesses with other countries of the Black sea region and the world.
"The BSTDB country strategy for Azerbaijan projects doubling the portfolio over the period. So far, the Bank managed to deliver in line with this ambitious strategy," Kondakov said.
According to Kondalov, during the discussions with the country's government on BSTDB's strategy for Azerbaijan, it was agreed that the Bank should focus generally upon viable or 'bankable' operations in the priority sectors of transport, agriculture and agribusiness, manufacturing and SME sector development.
BSTDB is an international financial institution established by Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The BSTDB headquarters is in Thessaloniki, Greece. BSTDB supports economic development and regional cooperation by providing loans, credit lines, equity and guarantees for projects and trade financing in the public and private sectors in its member countries.
In July, 2012 BSTDB Board elected the Governor for the Republic of Azerbaijan as the new Chairman of the BSTDB Board of Governors. The Governors for the Republic of Bulgaria and Georgia were elected as Deputy Chairmen, for a period of one year until the next Annual Meeting decided to take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, on June 9, 2013.