Can you give us some more historical background on your bank and also in terms of its structure and main activities today?
Our bank is the Uzbek commercial industrial bank and is one of the five largest banks in Uzbekistan. During the past few years it has been successfully operating in the international and local financial markets. Uzpromstroybank has started its activity in 1922 and it was initially opened as a branch of the construction bank of former Soviet Union, and now we have branches in almost all parts of the country.
The history of our bank is closely bounded with the economy of Uzbekistan. After the Independence, our bank has become the leading lending institution and is actively participating in the development of the banking infrastructure. Our bank is undertaking a lending policy directed to the effective resource allocation in implementing the projects for the development of the energy and oil complex, light industry, automobile construction, chemical industry and with the purpose of increasing the level of production of importing and exporting consumer goods. The founders and shareholders of our bank are well known organizations and institutions not only in Uzbekistan but also abroad. Those include Almalyk mining and metallurgical combinat, the Uzbek state aviation plant, Uzneftegaz, Navoi mining combinat, Tashkent tractor plant, the state corporation Uzpromgrajdanstroy, Uztransgaz enterprise, the national insurance company Uzbekinvest, etc.
We have more than 22 thousand customer organizations of all kinds of ownership, including private international and joint ventures, and moreover we also have more than 180 physical persons as customers.
The assets of our bank make up more than 12 billion sums as of September 1st, 2000, and we have 46 regional affiliates in the regions with developing industries.
Do you have any shares available for sale?
At this moment, we have shares amounting approximately to 1 billion sums. We recently declared our statutory capital of 6 billion sums, but to the end of this year, we are intending to increase our statutory capital up to 9 billion sums. Today, we are working not only with large customers but also with small and medium size business.
How would you describe your contribution to the development of the industrial and construction sector of Uzbekistan?
As I mentioned before, our bank has been operating since 1922 and since that time we are known as the major providers of credits to the industries in Uzbekistan. The major impulse for development occurred after the independence of our country, and consequently in 1991 our bank was transformed into a joint stock bank. Today, the state is no longer a major shareholder and does not have a direct share in our statutory capital. Starting from the independence day our bank has been on top of the major economic developments and construction works taking place in Uzbekistan. Since our major customers are among the largest industrial companies involved in the national economy of Uzbekistan, we are obliged to participate and undertake a number of investment projects.
Are there any new services you are actually developing now or launching in the near future?
For a successful and sustainable operation every bank has to implement various services that are new or comfortable for clients in order to attract more customers. In the past Uzpromstroybank was involved just in servicing the customers, whereas now it is developing its activity in the field of securities. Unlike the Soviet period when only one bank was licensed to deal with hard currency, now many banks are involved into various hard currency operations. Today our bank is working on implementing and developing plastic cards in order to reduce the cash turn over.
As I've mentioned before, we are also targeting
the small and medium size business and trying to
provide various types of services to push them to
develop their business and, certainly, to enjoy
profits. |
We are currently in the process of planning to privatize our bank and for that reason we have a few consultants of the World Bank working on this issue, which hopefully will bring positive results.
As you know all the credits are backed up by government guarantee and therefore we have some control of the government on our operations. Regardless of this government control there are still a number of banks that are really interested in joint cooperation.
We practiced a 15 million credit line issued by EBRD with the purpose of conceding loans to the small and medium size business in Uzbekistan.
As you said, you are working with foreign banks. So, can you give us some examples who you are working with?
Mainly we are working in close cooperation with the German banks like Dresden bank, Berliner bank, and Commerz bank, which opened credit lines for us without coverage. Besides that, we have more than 60 banks all over the world in which we have correspondent accounts.
As you said you are among the largest of Uzbekistan banks. What is your objective after privatization? Where do you want to be within the next two or three years? What are the main privileges your bank offers comparing to your competitors?
You probably know that there are about 40 banks in Uzbekistan and even if we are one of the leaders on the market we still perceive all of the other banks as our competitors. Based on their capabilities every bank provides services to their clients, and our policy is that we do not charge much for the services provided because we wish to attract a greater number of clients.
Since we traditionally provide services for the organizations in the heavy and oil extraction industries, we became not only a bank for them but also a type of their financial department which deals with many of their problems and obstacles that prevents them from acting successfully. We often advise them to execute certain operations, we provide credit support because those industrial companies require lots of investment and financial resources, and we also constantly monitor and analyze their activities in order to better suggest to them the right direction.
As for our vision of our bank in the next three or four years, we are planning to privatize it step by step until it is fully privatized by the year 2001. It is almost impossible to complete privatization in one or two years if there is state share prevailing in the statutory capital, but since there are many investors that are interested in investing in our bank we could reduce the share of the state in our capital. Therefore we should increase our statutory capital and try to sell our shares to the private sector.
Could you give some figures in terms of your number of staff and what has been your turnover last year?
We have 3500 employees in our bank including the ones in the regional affiliates, and our profit made up more than 2,5 billion as of September 1st,2000.
What would be your final message to our readers in the whole world who are businessmen looking for investment opportunities in Uzbekistan?
I wish that Forbes magazine act as a guide for all business people all over the world not only in USA or Europe that are interested in investment opportunities not only in Uzbekistan but also in Central Asia. With this occasion, I wish the staff of your magazine good luck and success in your work.
NOTE: World Investment News Ltd cannot be made responsible for the content of unedited transcriptions. |
Uzpromstroybank