Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Khalilova / Vitaliy Kramarenko, the Head of the IMF mission and Deputy Director of the IMF Department for Near East and Central Asia, stated that the National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA) asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for technical assistance on the financial sector appraisal program (FSAP). "This proposal will be considered by the Fund. The first IMF assessment within this program was made in 2003 and NBA wishes to continue with it," he said.
After the first assessment, laws "On banks" and "On National Bank of Azerbaijan" and many standard acts were adopted. All of them served to resolve the issues which arose in the first part of the FSAP assessment. In addition, there are assessment methods, which have been devised by the Basel Committee and are used jointly by the experts of the WB and IMF.
According to Kramarenko, the NBA also asked for assistance to improve the banking control program which is nearing completion. Presently the IMF offers technical assistance to the NBA in external trade, payment balance, defining the position on the international investment for Azerbaijan. For this purpose, the IMF sent a permanent advisor, Natalie Ivanchuk, to the NBA from the IMF Statistics Department in November 2006. Technical assistance of the IMF has been intended for Azerbaijan and Georgia, but the consultant will be based in Baku. The consultation services are contracted for one year.