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EBRD agrees credit line for small and medium sized firms in Azerbaijan
The EBRD has extended a credit line worth $2million to an Azerbaijani
financial institution to help provide financing specifically for Azerbaijan's
micro-, small and medium -sized enterprises.
The credit line is being opened to AzeriGazBank under the Azeri Multi-bank
Framework Financing Facility. The credit line is for on-lending to micro and
small enterprise clients of AzeriGazBank with borrowing requirements ranging
from just $100 up to $400,000. The financing is aimed at promoting
entrepreneurial activities especially outside of the capital Baku. Under the
Framework, EBRD offers technical cooperation to help the participating banks
extend this service further into the regions.
This is the fourth bank in Azerbaijan to be included in the EBRD’s program
to support micro and small enterprises since it was launched last year. The
program is targeted towards providing the smallest enterprises with access to
the formal financial market and to providing commercial banks technical
support to onlend the funds safely and efficiently. The EBRD has worked with
some 77 commercial banks in its countries of operation to provide support to
micro and small enterprises which in turn have facilitated over 1.3 million
subloans with an aggregate value of $8.8 billion to small businesses.
President Jean Lemierre, President of the EBRD, said the EBRD’s participation
in such financial transactions was crucial to efforts to work with the
Government of Azerbaijan to develop the non-oil sector and also to enhance
economic development in the regions outside of the capital.
The five-year credit line will be divided into two equal tranches of $1
million for micro and small enterprise (MSE) and small and medium sized (SME
finance. The line will help AzeriGazBank to expand its MSE and SME lending
operations further into the regions including Shamakhi, Ganja and Lenkoran.
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