EDB Council Approved 2008 Results and 2009 Plans
On 10 April 2009, a meeting of the EDB Council was held in Almaty. It was attended by Viktor Khristenko, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Finance, Bolat Zhamishev, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Kuandyk Bishimbayev, Head of Socioeconomic Monitoring of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Council considered and approved the annual report of the EDB Executive Board and the 2008 balance and profit and loss statement audited by Deloitte. In the reporting period, the Bank’s assets increased by 53% to $2.008 billion, and its capital increased from $854 million as at 31.12.2007 to $1.531 billion as at 31.12.2008, partially due to the full payment by the members of their respective shares in the Bank’s charter capital. The Bank’s net profit totalled $40.5 million.
The Council considered the report of the Executive Board on project activity in 2008. The Bank’s investment portfolio increased by more than five times to $1.2 billion. Igor Finogenov, Chairman of the Executive Board, commented that the Bank’s projects have the potential to generate mutual trade flows to a total of $900 million annually, including $675 million under 2008 projects alone. This will allow trade between Russia and Kazakhstan to be boosted by about 10% annually. In addition, the projects being implemented by the Bank secure an annual increase in mutual investments of 7.5%.
The Council generally approved the Programme of Measures to Maintain the EDB’s operation under the conditions of the world financial and economic crisis. The Bank’s founders and management confirmed their intention to focus upon investment projects which produce a maximum multiplicative effect (indirectly increasing GDP and employment in other sectors of the economy) and promote industrial co-operation of the member states.
Thus, the projects being considered by the Bank in 2009 must be oriented towards overcoming the fallout of the world crisis in the economies of its founders and new members, Armenia, Belarus and Tajikistan. “Admission of new members will elevate the Bank onto a qualitatively new level of performance”, says Igor Finogenov, “and is an important step towards transforming the EDB into a multilateral international project”.
The Council also approved the 2008 report of the Audit Committee and the Executive Board’s proposal to distribute the 2008 profit and to create reserves.
Igor Finogenov commented that “the EDB is involved in the processes occurring in its member states at a systemic level, and therefore could not avoid the influence of global changes in the capital markets. However, an increase in our investment portfolio in the last year, the interest from CIS countries in our projects, and our proposed participation in the management of the EurAsEC anti-crisis fund all demonstrate the high quality of our investment decisions”.