Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.20
By Emin Aliyev- Trend:
Demand for microfinance in Azerbaijan will not decrease over time, the chairman of the Azerbaijan Microfinance Association (AMFA) Suleyman Kalyashev said.
"In general, the state of the microfinance market in the country can be assessed as good. Thus, there is state support for this tool, there are all possibilities. Furthermore, non-bank credit institutions, credit unions operating in the country, albeit insufficiently, are provided with financial resources both from domestic and foreign investors," Kalyashev told Trend on Feb. 20.
However, non-bank credit organizations (NBCO) have encountered some difficulties, according to experts.
"The fact is that the commercial banks increasingly entering the microfinance segment has been recent . There was a time, when banks were not engaged in microfinance, preferring corporate customers. At the same time, there are not as many corporate clients in Azerbaijan today, especially in regions of the country, which has both objective and subjective reasons," Kalyashev noted.
One of the main reasons is a quite short market history of independent Azerbaijan, the expert said.
"Since the beginning of the agrarian reform in the mid- 90s, when the necessary legislative base was formed, the former collective and state farms were liquidated. More than 850,000 individual farms, which cover a large part of Azerbaijan, replaced them. The question of combining such a large number of business entities in the corporate sector is quite difficult to solve. These processes are still going on. Nevertheless, now corporate clients in the regions are significantly less than private. All this causes high demand for microfinance services in Azerbaijan and gives reason to assume that it will not be inclined to reduce in the future and will continue to grow," Kalyashev said.
The AMFA includes 30 organizations dealing with microfinance institutions in Azerbaijan: 8 commercial banks, 20 NBCO and 2 leasing companies are among them.
Total assets of all NBCO operating in the country, made up 542,13 million manat by the end of 2013, the CBA reported. In total, there are 43 banks and 148 NBCO, some 111 of which are credit unions.
The official exchange rate for Feb. 20 is 0.7844 AZN / USD.
Translated by S.I.
Edited by C.N
