Uzbek foreign Economic bank assets shrank 4% in 2001
Posted 03/07/2002 Tashkent.
(Interfax)
Uzbekistan's National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity closed
2001 with assets in the dollar equivalent of $3.75 billion, down 4% from $3.91
billion in 2000 (assets in 1999 totaled $4.44 billion), the bank said in a
press release. The loan portfolio totaled $2.2 billion at the close of the
year, compared with $2.2 billion a year earlier and $2.4 billion at the close
of 1999. Mid- and long-term loans accounted for 87.9% of lending. Equity capital
at the close of the year totaled $641 million in dollar terms, compared with
$662 million at the close of 2000 and $637 million at the end of 1999. Analysts
said the bank's indicators were down last year as a result of the Central
Bank's unification in November 2001 of the official and over- the-counter
exchange rate for the sum, lowering the official rate by more than 35% from
433.7 to 680.9 sums/$1. The National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity was
founded in September 1991. The bank is an agent of the government on world
financial markets and operates in Uzbekistan as a universal commercial bank.
The bank has correspondent accounts with 550 banks including 472 foreign and
28 Uzbek banks. It has 99 affiliates and branches in Uzbekistan and a subsidiary,
Asia Invest Bank, in Moscow.
