BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 22. Azerbaijan's Rabitabank OJSC and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a cooperation agreement on the Trade Finance Guarantee System last week, Trend reports.
The collaboration with ADB aims to strengthen Rabitabank's trade finance operations and offer enhanced services to its clients.
Besides, last week, Azerbaijan's TuranBank OJSC and ADB signed an agreement on financing international trade operations.
Under the new agreement, ADB has approved a trade finance guarantee limit, including TuranBank in the Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program (TSCFP).
This agreement will expand import-export operations in the country and support clients' trade transactions.
Additionally, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) and Visa have discussed expanding cooperation to promote innovation in the payment sector.
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) expects Azerbaijan's GDP growth to be 2.8 percent in 2024 and 2.3 percent in 2025.
Meanwhile, S&P Global Ratings predicted the country's real GDP growth in 2024 to be 1.5 percent (previously forecast at 1.4 percent).
The real GDP per capita growth for 2024 is forecast at 0.5 percent.
Analysts also forecast that real investment growth in the current year will be at three percent, and the nominal GDP for the year was forecast to equal $76.08 billion.
S&P Global Ratings forecasted Azerbaijan's current account balance as a percentage of GDP to be 11.18 percent this year, and the IMF expected this figure to be 8.5 percent of GDP.
Furthermore, analysts from ING presented GDP growth forecasts for Azerbaijan in the coming years. It is expected that economic growth rates in the country in the first quarter of 2024 will increase to four percent.
Thereafter, some slowdown was forecast, with figures of 2.5 percent and two percent in the second and third quarters of 2024, respectively.
ING analysts predicted the average annual inflation in Azerbaijan to be 3.1 percent in 2024 (down from 4.4 percent in the previous forecast), while the average annual inflation in Azerbaijan in 2025 is expected to be 3.8 percent (down from 5.5 percent in the previous forecast).
They also anticipated that the CBA would maintain the policy rate at seven percent throughout 2024.
Additionally, it has been revealed that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has increased its project portfolio in Azerbaijan. As of February 29, 2024, the EBRD's credit portfolio in Azerbaijan was estimated at 937 million euros (20 million euros more than on January 31 of the current year), allocated for the implementation of 32 projects.
The majority of the portfolio (90 percent, or 848 million euros) is aimed at investments in sustainable infrastructure, seven percent (64 million euros) in industry, trade, and the agricultural sector, and three percent (26 million euros) in financial institutions.
