DUSHANBE, June 4, 2009, Asia-Plus — Russia’s open joint-stock company (OJSC), Rosselkhozbank (Russian Agricultural Bank or RAB), has opened its representative office in Dushanbe.
An official opening of RAB”s representative office was held on June 2 and deputy chairman of the Board of Russian Agricultural Bank Konstantin M. Kudakov took part at the opening ceremony.
During the ceremony, it was noted that the office would facilitate the expansion of bilateral business contacts and strengthening of Russian-Tajik relations and would further increase the volume of export-import operations and turnover of commodities between Russia and Tajikistan, which last year amounted to 1 billion U.S. dollars.
RAB’s office in Dushanbe is dedicated to provide the Bank’s clients with new business opportunities both in the areas of banking and agribusiness operations, ensure access to Tajik economic and business information, and will enable to expand RAB’s client base and increase trade finance transactions in the region.
As it had been reported earlier, the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) has issued a permit for opening of the representative office of Russian Agricultural Bank in Dushanbe on April 27.
Russian Agricultural Bank is 100% state-owned bank regulated by the Central Bank of Russia. RAB is one of the leading financial institutions providing lending support to Russian agribusiness.
RAB is an agent of the Russian Government for providing financial services to agribusiness in Russia. It is the only state-owned bank in Russia exclusively focused on providing services to the agribusiness and rural population, which makes up 25% of the total population of Russia. RAB’s credit policy stipulates that at least 70% of the loan portfolio is devoted to agribusiness.
Today Russian Agricultural Bank’s network of 78 regional branches and about 1430 additional offices covers the whole territory of the Russian Federation and is the second largest regional branch network in the country.
Russian Agricultural Bank provides banking services nationwide to over one million clients The Russian government has provided RAB with 12 capital increases to date – the latest of which totaling 45 billion Russian rubles in February 2009 and 31.5 billion Russian rubles in August 2008. Following the February increase, RAB’s authorized capital amounted to 106.2 billion Russian rubles (equivalent to $3.6 billion) and total capital to 160 billion Russian rubles ($5 billion) as of May 01, 2009.
