BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 15. The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) continues to view issuing manat-denominated bonds as a natural direction for its activities, BSTDB President Dr. Serhat Köksal said in an exclusive interview with Trend, as he visited Baku.
He recalled that BSDB was the first multilateral development bank to issue a low-concurrency bond in Azerbaijan.
“In August 2019, we successfully placed a two-year bond in the amount of 10 million manats on the Baku Stock Exchange. This landmark transaction, the first ever Azerbaijani manat bond issued by an IFI in Azerbaijan, was an important milestone for us and was made possible through the continued support of the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, and the Baku Stock Exchange. Although this successful issue was not followed by subsequent placements for various reasons, we continue to view issuing manat-denominated bonds as a natural direction for our activities so that we can enhance our support to Azerbaijani banks with more manat lending at more accessible interest rates. We are monitoring market conditions and assessing the right timing to re-enter the local capital market," Köksal said.