Azernews.Az

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has postponed plans for the assessment of the Azerbaijani financial sector in partnership with the World Bank within the FSAP (Financial Sector Assessment Program) until next year, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia Department, Masood Ahmed, said at a press conference in Baku on Thursday.

"The FSAP assessment was to be held this year, but we need some time to prepare for this work. So it will be conducted a little later, next year," Ahmed said.

The first assessment of the IMF and the World Bank within this program was conducted in 2003.

The laws 'On the Banks' and 'On the National Bank', which are a set of regulations, were adopted after the first assessment. All of them basically were designed to eliminate questions that arose in the first round of the FSAP assessment.

As part of the assessment of the Azerbaijani financial sector, the World Bank and IMF experts held a stress test, which revealed a high ability of the banking system to resist risks of general indicator reduction. They showed that even with deterioration by 50-70 per cent (worst case scenario), the banking system will not fall to zero capital and its assets will exceed the liabilities which is a very positive sign.

According to the fund's department head, his visit coincided with the IMF mission, led by Raja Al Marzugi.

"This mission is more generally discussing the prospects and challenges of economic policy as part of the preparation for the next consultation in accordance with Article IV, scheduled for the beginning of 2013. The IMF is ready to provide technical assistance to support reforms carried out by state agencies in areas which are important for the macro economy," Ahmed said.