Azernews.Az

By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Within the Caspian Oil & Gas 2019 Exhibition, Russia’s Gazprombank and the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) signed a cooperation agreement in Baku on May 30.

Abbas Ibrahimov, the Chairman of the Board of IBA, and Alexei Belous, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprombank, signed the document.

The agreement provides for interaction of the parties with a view to potential financing of investment and other commercial projects in Azerbaijan. Among the priority areas of cooperation, the parties identified the petrochemical and oil and gas processing industries, agriculture, transport and communications.

In addition, the banks showed interest in developing cooperation in the sphere of contract banking, financial consulting and capital markets, and expressed their intention to provide mutual support and assistance in developing and promoting the settlement system in the national currencies of Russia and Azerbaijan.

It is expected that IBA-Moscow, a subsidiary of IBA in Russia, will also take part in a number of joint projects with Gazprombank.

Ibrahimov noted that IBA attaches great importance to the development of relations with foreign financial institutions and it is constantly expanding relations with international partners and always tries to assess new opportunities for cooperation.

“Azerbaijan and Russia have wide economic and trade relations and we hope that partnership relations and joint projects between IBA and Gazprombank will contribute to their further development,” he said.

In turn, Belous noted that Azerbaijan is one of the fastest growing CIS countries, with which Gazprombank has long-term business and friendly relations.

"The implementation of joint financing projects with IBA will enable the exchange of accumulated expertise and will give a new impetus to the development of the country,” Belous stated.

The Gazprombank Group includes many different companies that operate not only on the financial market, but also on the markets of precious metals, oil and gas, construction and others.

In Azerbaijan, the bank participated in financing the SOCAR Polymer project, allocating a loan in the amount of $489 million. Last fall, Gazprombank also concluded an agreement with SOCAR and the Russian Export Center. The agreements will allow the bank to support the supply of Russian equipment and services that are in demand in Azerbaijani projects.

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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1

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