Over the past 2 years, the SME lending portfolio of Areximbank-Gazprombank Group increased from AMD3,800.0 up to AMD 7,400.0, Head of SME Lending Department Martin Torosyan said this.

According to him, as a result of the signing of the agreement for USD10mln with the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) this year, the bank overfulfilled the contract terms issuing 17 loans to the SME for 6 months.

"We traditionally finance the following spheres - transport, construction, trade and services. We can't but be happy with  the fact that the production lending grew by almost 10% recently", said Martin Torosyan.

Touching upon the program of SME lending by the World Bank with participation of Areximbank, Martin Torosyan said that 94 loans at a total amount of AMD1bln 11mln were issued by the bank by the program in late November 2011 while already 159 loans at a total amount of AMD1mln 571mln were issued at the same period of 2012.

In 2013, the bank is expected to sign an agreement with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for the agriculture re-funding program at an amount of about AMD1bln.