A delegation led by Jean Lemierre, the President of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), is on 2-day visit to Baku from Monday. Lemierre plans to meet with senior Azerbaijani officials, including Ilham Aliyev, the Azerbaijani President, and Heydar Babayev, the Minister of Economic Development, as well as Elman Rustamov, the chair of the Board of the National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA), Trend reports referring to a news release by EBRD.
EBRD and Azerbaijan will sign a $2 million loan line with a local financial institution, Azerigazbank OJSC, for financing to micro-, small- and medium-sized Azerbaijani enterprises. The signing takes place at Caspian B Room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Tuesday at 09.30 and will be followed by a press conference. On the same day the EBRD delegation will visit Guba town to get familiar with development of small and medium-size businesses outside of the countrys capital.
After the trip the delegation plan to hold meetings with the partner banks of EBRD. The European Bank continues work with Azerbaijan in the framework of the transition period to the market economy and the last strategy of the bank is aimed at development of non-oil sector and regional economic diversification, increase of competitiveness of banking sector, as well as use of the sector as an intermediary to provide support to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, rehabilitation of public infrastructure, including, roads, railways, electric energy, telecommunications. The strategy is also aimed at further development of the natural resources sector, taking into consideration the environment, transparent management and effective utilisation of revenues.