Finance

Home page

Finance

IFC helps ACALF Advisory Services Project participants attract $147 million

23 April 2009 16:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, helped Azerbaijan and Central Asia Leasing Facility (ACALF) Advisory Services Project participants to raise leasing portfolio, said Anastasia Marina, Project Manager at IFC.

She said the project enabled Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan to increase their total leasing portfolio to $270 million in 2008.

In her words, leading companies based in these countries concluded $147 million worth of leasing contracts in 2008.

In a major effort to strengthen the leasing industry in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; in 2005, IFC in partnership with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) launched the ACALF Advisory Services activity â€“ a three-and-half-year project that aimed to improve private sector economic growth, increase access to finance and create employment through the development of leasing.

ACALF Advisory Services Project has provided assistance to 13 participating financial institutions (PFIs) engaged in financial leasing in the region. At the industry level, the IFC project has worked to improve the business climate by removing burdensome legal and regulatory obstacles that hinder the viability of leasing. At the institutional level, the project has strived to build capacity and strengthen systems within the individual financial institutions.