Finance

Home page

Finance

Azerbaijan hosts international banking conference

24 October 2008 12:41 (UTC +04:00)

The event was attended by private investors, and representatives from leading financial institutions, banks, private investors and government agencies.
Elman Rustamov, Chairman of the National Bank of Azerbaijan, said at the outset that the conference will focus on solutions and ways for the CIS countries to bypass the global financial crisis which have adverse effect not only on the financial sector, but also on the economy as a whole.
According to him, a purposeful monetary policy is required in order to avoid the crisis. â€œIn some countries, they register growth without real economic development. But this can not be said about Azerbaijan. Over the past 5 years, GDP per capita grew to $6 000, the state budget increased by 9 times and investments surged up by 23 times. The impact of global financial crisis was low on the banking system of Azerbaijan because the central bank begun to take appropriate precautionary measures in as early as 2006. The world financial crisis is still ongoing. For this reason, it is important to increase the current liquidity and introduce new financial instruments,â€ he noted.
Jahangir Hajiyev, Chairman of International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), spoke of IBAâ€™s activities, saying a number of social projects were financed over the recent years.
â€œThere are several major projects that are funded by the IBA. Our goal is to reduce dependence on external financing. In total, a debt of more than $500 million was repaid this year. IBA lent in total $250 million in the last one year and a half. Total borrowings from international financial institutions have been more than $1 billion in total,â€ he added.
According to Hajiyev, there was no decrease in the bankâ€™s clientele because of the global financial crisis:
â€œCentral banks play grate role in tackling the financial crisis. It is necessary to curb inflation and ensure high competitiveness. The coincidence of this conference with the crisis will give a real contribution to the CIS and other countries,â€ he added.
The conference is to discuss organizational and structural support for banking systems in the global liquidity crisis and an enabling environment for interactive integration of banks and capitals into the cross-border financial markets of the CIS countries.
The organizer of the conference is the CIS Finance and Banking Council, and the general sponsor is International Bank of Azerbaijan.