AZERI GOV'T NOT REFUSES TO FIFTH TRANCHE OF INF UNDER PRGF

Baku, IAA "Trend" April 7 corr. R.Abbasov

The Azerbaijani government is not interested IMF credits on mechanism of financing the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) program, Avaz Alakbarov, Finance Minister, told Trend.

Alakbarov said all installments of IMF are sent to increasing country's currency reserves. "We needed the credits several years ago. Now the amount of reserves is high, we manage them and are not interest in the loan. We only want to set successful cooperation with IMF, Alakbarov noted.

According to Alakbarpov, the Azerbaijani government has no intention to refuse to the fifth tranche of IMF.

The Finance Minister noted that Azerbaijan was eager to receive grace credits from the World Bank to implement several projects and the relations with IMF would not affect on the decision by the WB Board of Directors on allocating credits under SAC-3. "We will try to continue successful cooperation with IMF and the disagreements with this organization will not affect on the relations with other international institutes. Cessation of bonds with IMF would evolve undesirable problems for us, Alakbarov underlined.

Under PRGF it is planned to allocate credits for 80.45m SDR, or $119m.