Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 30
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
Creating a registry of movable property will have a significant impact on the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Azerbaijan, IFC project coordinator of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for strengthening the financial infrastructure in Central Asia and Azerbaijan Teymur Heybatov told Trend Oct.30.
"Due to the fact that now the government agencies make a special emphasis namely on the increase of aid to SMEs, we hope that the law on secured transactions [which provides for establishment of movables registry] will be adopted in the near future," he said.
He said that guidelines for creation of movables registry have been prepared together with the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy and Industry.
He said that in the future, after the law is approved, IFC will render the technical assistance to those organizations to be involved in the creation of personal property registry.
The bill on secured transactions was prepared in 2008 by the ACDI-VOCA international organization with the USAID assistance. ACAFI project proceeded to finalize the bill in 2010. The bill has been finalized jointly by IFC and USAID since 2010. Then the Central Bank of Azerbaijan joined the process.
The law will ensure the transparent rules for creditors and facilitate the use of personal property (various inventory, equipment, accounts receivable) as collateral, by increasing the profitability and maintaining the economic growth of Azerbaijan.
The bill envisages the creation of personal property registry. The personal property registry will affect the number of issued loans, especially to small and medium-sized businesses.
Azerbaijan started forming borrowers' credit history from 2005, following the creation of the Centralized Credit Registry under the Central Bank.
The registry covers the whole information about banks, non-bank credit institutions, borrowers, owners of large stocks in the capital of borrowers.
ACAFI project is aimed at improving the infrastructure of financial markets in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and Azerbaijan by creating an effective system for exchanging credit information and providing professional training and certification in the sphere of risk management among the employees of financial institutions.
The project will help financial institutions to take quicker and right credit decisions, thereby increasing the accessibility of financial services for individual consumers and small and medium enterprises in the region. This three-year project is being implemented in cooperation with the Swiss government.
Edited by SI