Jeddah, KSA, 02.04.2014 – While on an official visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister HE Sirodjidin Aslov Muhridinovich and his accompanying delegation paid a visit to the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group headquarters in Jeddah and conferred with Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, Chairman, IDB Group, on ways to enhance ongoing cooperation between the Group and Tajikistan.

The Minister praised the relations with the IDB Group and underlined that Tajikistan considers IDB as a major development partner, expressing his country’s willingness to upgrade cooperation with the IDB Group in such fields as power generation, food security, railways, and Islamic banking.

The IDB Group Chairman emphasized the Bank’s keenness to promote cooperation with Tajikistan, particularly in high priority projects including developing the transport network linking Tajikistan to its neighboring countries.

During the visit, the two sides entered into an agreement for a US$ 6 million line of financing from the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private sector (ICD), the private sector arm of the IDB, to the ORIENBANK of Tajikistan. The financing facility is expected to be utilized for extending support to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the industrial, communication, technology, health, construction and agricultural sectors. Mr. Khaled Al-Aboodi, CEO and General Manager of ICD
and Mr. Sherali Kaberov from the ORIENBANK signed the agreement. “We are currently focusing on SMEs by extending lines of financing to local banks as well as helping establish financial institutions to support SMEs such as the ASR Leasing company in Tajikistan which is a Shari’ah-compliant leasing company”, Mr. Khaled Al-Aboudi said, on the occasion.

Tajikistan joined the IDB in November 1996. The total IDB Group approvals for the country to-date stands at US$ 345 million covering several development sectors particularly, power generation, agriculture, education and roads as well as financing foreign trade operations aimed at increasing the volume of trade amongst IDB member countries.