Among the participants of the conference were representatives of financial institutions and insurance companies from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Russian Federation. Attending on the Belarusian side were such partners of the bank as Belarusian Railway, Belneftekhim concern, Minsk Tractor Works RUE, Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange OJSC, Belarusian Potassium Company CJSC, Gomeldrev OJSC, Gorodeya Sugar Refinery OJSC, Slutsk Sugar Refinery OJSC and others.
The first part of the conference saw the speeches of senior executives from Belarus and from abroad.
"Belarusbank has been actively developing international cooperation with foreign financial institutions, insurance companies and banks for more than 20 years. This work has resulted in the fact that at present Belarusbank serves around 20% of the country's foreign trade turnover and is the leader in attracting resources of foreign banks for investment projects implementation in Belarus. The most successful cooperation in these spheres is with the German business", underlined Deputy Chairman of the Board of Belarusbank Vladimir Novik in his presentation. "In the last 10 years we attracted resources of German banks with coverage by Export Credit Agencies (ECA) for project financing for a total amount of more than one billion euros. To gain a better understanding it should be noted that in the year 2000 this figure comprised only 80 million euros," underlined the executive.
In his report Per Fischer, Head of Financial Institutions in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, CIS and Baltic states of Commerzbank AG, mentioned that Commerzbank was the first German bank to come to Belarus. 20 years of cooperation were very fruitful. "We established serious relationships with 20 of 31 banks registered in the Republic of Belarus. Undoubtedly, Belarusbank being our most important partner among Belarusian banks plays a crucial role in the partnership we established in this country".
Mr. Fischer expressed hope for more fruitful cooperation in the future and wished Belarusbank many years of successful development of business in Germany.
Marck Wengrzik, Managing Director of the consortium of German banks AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft, underlined that from the point of view of business the relationship between Germany and Belarus is special. The cooperation started 10 years ago in the most active direction - short-term trade financing. At present it is also developing in the sphere of financing Belarusian-German contracts with ECA insurance and in the sphere of syndicated lending. Mr. Wengrzik highly appreciated the contribution of the Representative Office of Belarusbank to the development of economic relationships between the Republic of Belarus and Germany and mentioned that "within the framework of business activity in the course of time we have established strong cooperation based on personal communications, which is a reliable basis for continuing cooperative work".
In general, Belarusbank is the leading national financial institution in the sphere of attracting untied foreign resources. For example, for the last 5 years more than EUR 1.3 bn of untied resources were attracted, EUR 550 bn of which by syndicated loans. For the last 10 years around USD 5.5 bn in the equivalent were attracted by trade financing. Belarusbank attracts monetary resources satisfying the needs of both small, medium and large business in various spheres: mechanical engineering, microelectronics, woodworking, metallurgy, communal facilities, construction, agriculture, petrochemistry, glass, food and mining industries.
In the course of discussions and personal communication the state and perspectives of Belarusian economy, the strategy of Belarusbank and new lines of international cooperation were considered.
The individual loan agreement with the AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft and Commerzbank AG banks for financing the Belshina JSC project and Harburg-Freudenberger Maschinenbau GmbH, Germany, was signed during the conference.
Also an agreement with Commerzbank AG, Master Agreement Uncommitted Bilateral Trade Finance Facility, was signed.
Pictured: First row (signers of the agreement):
Ralph Lerch, Head of Export Financing, Commerzbank;
V.Novik, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Belarusbank
Peter Lamar, Structured Export and Trade Finance, Commerzbank;
Marck Wengrzik, Managing Director of AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft mbH;
Dieter Reiss, Deputy Head of Business Development, AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft mbH;
Upper row:
Holger Kautzky, Head of the Department for Cooperation with Financial Institutions of Russia and Belarus, Commerzbank AG;
Per Fischer, Financial Institutions, Head of the Department for Cooperation with Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Baltic States and Mongolia, Commerzbank AG;
Jochen Anton-Boicuk, Head of Export and Trade Finance, CEE and CIS countries;
Y.Buraya, International Business, Head of Structured Finance;
M.Kulichkov; International Business, Deputy Director;
Elenа Melnikova, Business Development, AKA Ausfuhrkredit-Gesellschaft mbH
Representatives of Belarusbank and of the largest Belarusian companies answered the questions of western partners. The guests of the conference highly appreciated the professional manner and the level of the event.
The organizers of the presentation believe this event will become a basis for new business ideas and promising projects with the participation of Belarusbank and Belarusian companies.