OREANDA-NEWS. The Council of Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) conducted its regular meeting in Astana on 24 May 2016. It was attended by the following members of the Bank’s Council: Gagik Khachatryan, Minister of Finance, from the Republic of Armenia; Vladimir Amarin, Minister of Finance, from the Republic of Belarus; Karim Massimov, Prime Minister, and Bakhyt Sultanov, Minister of Finance, from the Republic of Kazakhstan; Adylbek Kasymaliyev, Minister of Finance, from the Kyrgyz Republic; Anton Siluanov, Minister of Finance, and Sergey Storchak, Deputy Minister of Finance, from the Russian Federation; and Yusuf Majidi, Head of Strategic Planning and Reform Department, Executive Office of the President, from Tajikistan.

Karim Massimov, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the EDB Council, was re-elected as Chairman of the EDB Council. The Council also approved the Bank’s 2015 annual and financial reports, Review Commission and Internal Audit reports for 2015.

The Council of the Banks also approved its updated Strategy for 2013-2017, which contains revised EDB performance indicators, inter alai taking into account macroeconomic developments in the region, depreciation of EDB members’ currencies, as well as revised national and general Eurasian industrial, investment, and social policy priorities.

Under its updated Strategy, EDB is planning to expand the volume of its current investment portfolio to US $ 3.3 billion by end-2017, with regional integration project financing accounting for at least 50% of the total investment portfolio.

The targeted focus of the Bank’s project-related activities will be shifted particularly to projects generating integration effects. Being a supranational institution, the Bank will identify potential options of its member state cooperation and integration, establish ties between production chains in the region, including those in industry, and take further steps to identify and participate in infrastructure projects in its member states.

The Bank is planning to focus on supporting projects in energy generation, machine engineering, chemical, mining, and petrochemical industries, and infrastructure.

Certain mechanisms of the Strategy implementation were developed, inter alia in the part of mobilising essential funding and liquidity in local currencies.

Under the approved Strategy, the Management Board of EDB is instructed to sign memoranda of cooperation with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank.