The World Bank (WB) mission led by Frauke Yungblut, the chief economist on agriculture region, will start a visit to Baku from 17 January to prepare the second stage of the adapted program on development and crediting of the agriculture in Azerbaijan, the Baku representative office of the organization told Trend. The bank set to the development and estimation of the new project in late 2005.
The bank held negotiations with the Azerbaijani government to determine the components of the project due to be implemented within the banks partnership strategy with Azerbaijan for 2006-2009.
On 8 June 1999 the WB Board of Executive Directors approved the first stage on allocation of $30m by the bank and $3.6m by the Azerbaijani government. The first stage was envisaged for 4 years and was due to expire in the first half-year of 2004, but it was prolonged till June 2006. The further fate of the program will depend on the effectiveness of the implementation of the $100m project envisaged for 10 years.
WB plans to finance the second stage of the project as in the first case at expense of the International Development Association. Nevertheless, the participation of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development in the implementation of some work within the project is not excluded as well.