BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 24. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) lowered the discount rate from 8.5 percent to 8 percent, the upper limit of the interest rate corridor was reduced from 9.5 percent to 9 percent and the lower limit from 7 percent to 6.5 percent this week, Trend reports.
In addition, Rashad Mammadov was appointed as a new advisor to the CBA chairman this week.
The CBA and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) discussed the prospects of cooperation this week.
In addition, S&P Global Ratings revised its BICRA assessment of Azerbaijan's banking system this week and improved its industry risk assessment from "9" to "8" and now classifies Azerbaijan's banking system as group "8" rather than "9" on Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA).
S&P Global Ratings has also affirmed long-term and short-term issuer credit ratings of Azerbaijani Azer-Turk Bank at "B+/B", outlook on the ratings - "stable", as well as revised to "positive" from "stable" outlook on the Entrepreneurship Development Fund of Azerbaijan.
An Azerbaijani-Turkish investment forum was held this week, during which Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat revealed the volume of mutual investments between Azerbaijan and Türkiye.
"The volume of Türkiye's investments in Azerbaijan's economy, taking into account also investments through third countries, is about $12.5 billion. At the same time, Azerbaijan's investments in the Turkish economy amount to $19.5 billion," the minister said.
In addition, this week it was reported that payment by bank card will be tested on several routes of public transport in Azerbaijan from January 2024. After the tests, it is planned to proceed to the initial introduction of the new payment system at the end of the first quarter of next year.
This week, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved a $60 million long-term loan to Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company (ASCO).
In its report, the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) named the volume of investment projects between Azerbaijan and Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as well as the volume of investments of the Middle East and North Africa countries in Azerbaijan.
According to EDB data, the volume of mutual investments between Azerbaijan and Russia amounted to $4.4 billion in the first half of 2023, and the number of mutual investment projects amounted to 30.
Out of the above mentioned amount, $4.2 billion (15 projects) are Russian investments in Azerbaijan and $264 million (15 projects) are Azerbaijani investments in Russia.
In turn, the volume of mutual investments between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan amounted to $82 million in the first half of 2023, and the number of mutual investment projects - 6. Of this amount, $8 million (2 projects) are Kazakh investments in Azerbaijan, and $74 million (4 projects) are Azerbaijani investments in Kazakhstan.
The volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) of the Middle East and North Africa countries in Azerbaijan totaled $1.7 billion in the first half of 2023.
In addition, according to EDB data, Azerbaijan is strengthening its economic position in the Eurasian region, ranking third in terms of exported investments with a share of 7.3 percent ($3.5 billion) of total investments in the region ($48.8 billion) at the end of the first half of 2023. Azerbaijan has been increasing its total FDI in the CIS (from 2 billion to 3.6 billion) for three years since 2018, implying an average annual growth of $500 million.
This week, Tinkoff Business launched currency transfers to Azerbaijan, with business customers able to make incoming and outgoing payments in Azerbaijani manat (AZN).