Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.11
By Maksim Tsukrov - Trend:
The new strategy of the World Bank on cooperation with Azerbaijan will be aimed at diversifying the country's economy, the head of the World Bank in Azerbaijan Larisa Leshchenko told Trend Feb.10.
"A very active work on the preparation of a new strategy is underway now," said Leshchenko. "Corporate internal banking discussion of the concept of cooperation between the WB and Azerbaijan over the next six years, including this year will be held next week."
She said that very active discussion of areas and projects to be included in the strategy is underway.
"I'm not ready now to say exactly on which projects the further cooperation will include, because discussions are still ongoing, and we are still waiting for a response from the government," the representative of the World Bank said.
"We hope that these projects will cover further cooperation in the field of infrastructure development, institutional development, improvement of the management structure of government programs, as well as human capital development. The combination of all of these areas creates prerequisites for economic diversification. It is planned to build a viable diversification model on these factors that will be resistant to the possible crises and challenges that will appear on the way of the development of the country."
Leshchenko said that strategy is prepared by the WB team, which is based in Baku, with the support of experts from Washington.
"We are constantly in touch," said Leshchenko. "The arrival of some special group is not expected within the preparation of the strategy, but I would like to say that after the discussion of the concept within the bank, we would like to discuss this strategy with the government, NGOs, the media and academia, various associations, youth organizations, etc., as we would like to hear the views of all participants of the process."
The new strategy of the bank's activity in Azerbaijan should be finalized by May 2015.
The current strategy of cooperation with Azerbaijan has been calculated for 2011-2014.
Azerbaijan is a member of the World Bank since 1992. The amount of loan agreements signed between Azerbaijan and the World Bank accounts for $4.086 billion.
Edited by CN
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