Budapest is expected to join the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) in 2020 and is ready to discuss its entry procedures with the bank's member states, Hungarian Finance Minister Mihaly Varga said on Friday, following a meeting with the EDB management
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th November, 2019) Budapest is expected to join the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) in 2020 and is ready to discuss its entry procedures with the bank's member states, Hungarian Finance Minister Mihaly Varga said on Friday, following a meeting with the EDB management."Hungary is ready to start negotiations to become a full member of the Eurasian Development Bank. Currently, six countries are members of this bank, we need our entry approved on their part. It is difficult for me to assess how quickly these countries will make their decision. But I'm sure that our entry can be finalized in 2020. It could be the beginning of the year or the second half of the year," Varga told reporters on the sidelines of the 14th annual Eurasian Economic Integration international conference.
According to the finance minister, negotiations on Hungary's accession conditions are underway with other members of the bank.
Hungary is confident that joining EDB will open new opportunities for cooperation, he said.
"This is especially important, given the fact that we are talking about two particularly intensively developing regions, first of all, Eurasian and Central-Eastern European. This will serve the economic development and economic interests of our countries, therefore we want to open the doors to opportunities more widely," Varga noted.
The minister emphasized the possibilities of new investments, new forms of cooperation between enterprises and the possibility of entering new markets.
"We are very pleased on the Hungarian side that the EDB sees very serious opportunities in the Central and Eastern European region, and we, for our part, will provide all support for this work," he added.
Last month, EDB representatives told Sputnik that Hungary would begin work on joining the bank within one to two months and finish it in the first half of 2020.
The EDB, founded by Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2006, is an international financial institution designed to promote economic growth in its member states and to strengthen trade and economic cooperation among them.
The bank has four more members Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and its cumulative investment portfolio totals $7.7 billion.
