Baku, Azerbaijan, March 7
By Sara Israfilbayova – Trend:
The decree on additional measures for addressing issues of problem loans of natural persons in Azerbaijan is aimed to support the poorest segments of the population, Mercy Tembon, the World Bank’s (WB) Regional Director for the South Caucasus, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
The regional director said that devaluation mainly affects people with low income, and this is where the government's help is very important.
Tembon further added that the main goal of the World Bank is to fight, reduce and eliminate poverty.
Azerbaijan put a lot of effort in reducing the level of poverty, that the country has been battling ever since the 1990's. Launch of specific economic reforms has led to a drastic drop in poverty level across the country. According to President Ilham Aliyev, the number of people living in poverty in Azerbaijan has decreased from 49 to 5.4 percent over the past 15 years.
Tembon, further spoke on entrepreneurship, noting that all people should have entrepreneurial spirit.
It should be noted that in recent years Azerbaijan undertook a number of measures to simplify and promote development of entrepreneurship in the country, as well as help local small and medium size businesses.
The regional director emphasized that in world practice, as in Azerbaijan, the main focus in such cases, is made on people with low income.
The decree provides for the payment of compensation to citizens whose loan burden increased due to the devaluation of the Azerbaijani manat in February and December 2015. The decree also creates opportunities for the restructurization of both US dollar and manat loans with a delay of more than 360 days.
Azerbaijan joined the World Bank Group in 1992. During this period, the bank allocated loans for the implementation of over 50 projects in the country worth over $3 billion. Seven more projects worth about $1.5 billion are being implemented.
Besides the loans, WB allocated 45 grants to Azerbaijan totaling $41.586 million in 1995-2014.
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