Annual meeting of the BSTDB's Board of Directors held in Baku

The meeting was presided over by Chairman of the BSTDB Board of Directors, Azerbaijan's Minister of Economic development Heydar Babayev, AzerTAg informs.

He highly appreciated the progress achieved by the BSTDB, and spoke of the Bank's outstanding tasks.

Mr. Babayev stressed the necessity for strengthening BSTDB's activities in accordance with needs and development strategies of the countries of the region.

The Azeri Minister said the Bank has made a lot of progress under Azerbaijan's chairmanship. Mr. Babayev noted that some BSTDB's shareholder countries are expected to be affiliated with the European Union soon; and that the Bank will play an important role in integration of these countries and other shareholder-countries into the European structures.

Heydar Babayev also expressed hope that current discussions will improve BSTDB's work making it capable to meet changing demands of its member states.

President of the BSTDB Hayrettin Kaplan informed the meeting participants about the last year's activity and future plans of the Bank.

Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, secretary-general of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) organization highly appreciated the BSTDB’s activity during Azerbaijan's chairmanship.

Directors of the Bank's member states delivered reports on their activities in 2005.

The Board of Directors approved the Bank's 2006 budget and changes to the Board's regulations, and decided to hand over the chairmanship of the Bank in 2006-2007 to Moldova.

The BSTDB Board of Directors' June 10 meeting approved four projects for Azerbaijan worth about $11 million.

The loan agreement will be signed on June 12 during the Black Sea Business Forum.

The projects imply giving lines of credit to Azerbaijani banks for them to boost small and medium sized businesses, trade and industry in the country.