MAIB AND VB TO GET CREDITS FROM EBRD

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide credits worth 5 million euros each to two Moldovan systemic banks - the Moldova Agroindbank (MAIB) and the Victoriabank for a period of 4 years.

According to reliable sources, the ceremony of signing the credit agreements will take place on Wednesday, April 17, in the office of the EBRD Permanent Representation in Moldova.

It is supposed that the credit agreements with the ruling Moldovan banks will be signed by Henry Russell, EBRD Director for Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine and the Western Balkans in the Financial Institutions Group. From the side of banks the signatories will be MAIB Chairman of the Board Sergiu Cebotari and Victoriabank Chairman of the Board Bogdan Plesuvescu.

The funds are designed for crediting small and medium enterprises to give them the possibility to buy equipment and technologies to raise the quality of the issued products, which will allow further exporting it to EU country markets. The EBRD credit resources, provided to the MAIB and the Victoriabank, have a grant component, which raises their attractiveness for the private sector of the Moldovan economy.

According to independent experts, the signing of credit agreements means that these banks have a corresponding level of corporative governance and have 100% transparency of shareholders.

As Infotag has already reported, the EBRD suspended the crediting of Moldova's systemic banks due to problems with transparency of their shareholders. Over this time, the Parliament, the Government and the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) have done great work, whose completion stage became the attraction of foreign investors into three systemic banks - MAIB, VB and Moldindconbank, whose market share exceeds 60%.

Currently, 41.09% of MAIB capital belongs to a consortium of investors with participation of the EBRD, over 40% of the VB - to the Banca Transilvania (Romania's second largest bank), while 63.89% of the MICB - to the Holding Doverie AD (Bulgaria).