Azernews.Az

The World Bank (WB) and the Azerbaijani government can launch work as part of the multi-year Joint Economic Research Programme - JERP in the short term, the bank's manager in Azerbaijan Larisa Leshchenko told Trend news agency.

"We have significantly advanced negotiations, but today there are a number of technical issues to be solved. There are different schemes of work. Now we are working on one that will be acceptable for Azerbaijan, and fit into a framework agreement with the WB. If we reach agreement on these key areas in the near future, we can sign the agreement. Today we continue to discuss the program and I think that the prospects of signing are high enough," Leshchenko said.

The Azerbaijani government and the World Bank are developing a framework agreement to start work within JERP. The first three-year cycle of the program is preliminarily planned at five million dollars. As part of the program, the Azerbaijani government will be able to request study on various topics from the WB, and will finance them.

"The program provides mechanisms which will allow it to jointly determine the topics, areas of technical assistance and economic research. It is necessary to build the program so that analytical skills and potential in this field are developed in Azerbaijan, "Leshchenko said.

As the government told Trend earlier, this mechanism will allow Azerbaijan to obtain financial leverage on consultants.

Azerbaijan has been a member of the World Bank since 1992.