Azerbaijan, Baku, 20 June / Trend E.Aliyev /
The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) plans to resume talks on attracting investments from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ), BSTDB chairman Andrei Kondakov told Trend on Thursday.
"We have already addressed the State Oil Fund with such a proposal in the past, but existing investment rules of the fund do not allow the transfer of funds to financial institutions with a rating lower than AA. The Black Sea Bank has the highest rating in the region at 'A'- by S & P and 'A3', according to Moody's. Nevertheless, this still is insufficient," Kondakov said.
He said the Black Sea Bank hopes to resume negotiations on the allocation of funds from the State Oil Fund.
"As soon as the bank's rating is increased to AA and we hope this will happen in the not too distant future, we will again turn to the State Oil Fund with regards to this issue," Kondakov added.
Currently, the bank's activities are mainly concentrated in the financial sector. BSTDB opened credit lines to 10 Azerbaijani banks - International Bank of Azerbaijan, Access Bank, AGBank, Unibank, Texnika Bank, Demir Bank, Kapital Bank, Azer-Turk Bank, Bank Standard and Bank Respublika.
In the real sector, a contract was signed with ADA Almali Retail.
At present, Greece, Russia and Turkey remain the largest shareholders with stakes of 16.5 per cent each. Romania owns 14 per cent, Bulgaria and Ukraine - 13.5 per cent each, Azerbaijan - five per cent, Albania - two per cent, Armenia and Moldova - one per cent each and Georgia - 0.5 per cent.
The bank's governor from Azerbaijan is the Minister of Economic Development Shahin Mustafayev and his deputy is Finance Minister Samir Sharifov.