The First International Caucasus Banking & Finance Conference - 2006 exhibition with approximately 100 participants from 15 world countries, including Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, UK, Austria, India, and Uzbekistan started in Baku last week.
In his opening address the chairman of the National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA), Elman Rustamov, Azerbaijan occupies a leading position for the dynamic of economic development.
Rustamov stressed the necessity of establishment of the non-oil economy and the banking sector should play a role of locomotive in this process Over the past 10 years the banking sector has seen both qualitative and quantitative changes in correspondence with the market economy, he added.
Today private bank system carries out over half of banking services. Over past period here was observed a consolidation of banks, as result of which their number reduced from 250 to 44. The capitalization of banks increased 4 times, the profitability from 14% to 19%. The rest indicators demonstrated a doubled rise, the head of the NBA underlined.
The NBA has carried out intensive work on increase of attractiveness of the banking system, which resulted in flow of foreign capital in the country. The financial market of the country is on the stage of integration into the international fiscal markets and has attracted 2 syndicated credits. Over the past period the banks assets doubled and reached 2,525m manats, deposits with rise of 2-3 times comprised 1,495m manats, the aggregate capital of banks 367m manats.
The economic achievements enable to put forward a new doctrine, which is intended to target the socio-economic development for gradual proximity to indices of the world leading countries. Moreover, the official statistic urge, over the nearest 15 years Azerbaijan is expected to see inflow of $120-140bn and in this case the key task of the banking sector is to use in the right way these funds.