Monday, October 4 2010 14:47
EBRD and ARARATBANK sign a US$5 million loan agreement for on-lending to SME
ArmInfo. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and ARARATBANK OJSC signed a new loan agreement for US$5 million for on-lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), ARARATBANK press-service told ArmInfo. Ashot Osipyan, ARARATBANK Board Chairman, and Valeriu Razlog, Head of EBRD Office in Yerevan signed the loan agreement.
"We highly appreciate our relations and cooperation with the EBRD. Thanks to it, we have got a big experience to meet interests of our customers and upgrade the image of ARARATBANK. I am sure the cooperation with the EBRD will be continued and expand the area of our activity," Ashot Osipyan says.
The new loan agreement is continuation of the long-term cooperation with the EBRD launched yet in 2008. The parties signed the first agreement in January 2008 for US$6 million loan, including US$5 million were on-lent to SME and US$1 million was sued to stimulate international trade. In October 2008 an agreement was signed on EBRD's participation in the capital of ARARATBANK (25%+1 share). The next step was a SME co-finance agreement of US$4 million. Before that the two parties signed an agreement in Zagreb on increase of ARARATBANK's capital by the shareholders. In fact, EBRD invested US$600,000 in the capital of the bank. Ranking of Armenian Commercial Banks prepared by the Agency of Rating Marketing Information (ArmInfo) says ARARATBANK's assets totaled 42.7 billion drams on July 1 2010. The share of lending in total assets was over 52%, including nearly 66% were loans to economy sectors. The latest data provided to ArmInfo by the EBRD say the bank signed 15 agreements in Armenia as of October 1 2010.
A big part of the loans was spent to develop the real sector of economy, particularly, food industry, construction sector and pharmaceutics. Most investments were in the banking sector, particularly, EBRD placed nearly 20 million EUR in the sphere of SME via Armenian banks and will increase this figure to 30 million euro till the end of the year. In addition, EBRD intends to increase total volume of its investments in Armenia to 60 million euro within the frames of 20-22 agreements.