TOKYO (Sputnik) — The EDB was conceived by the leaders of Russia and Kazakhstan in early 2006, and started to fully operate later that year. There are currently six bank members — the founders, as well as Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Other countries and international organizations can join in, they just need to sign up to the EDB's founding agreement.
In turn, the Japanese government stressed the need for the provision of loans not only from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), which has been granting loans to Russian businesses, but also private Japanese financial organizations.
Tokyo expected that the the issue of bilateral lending methods would be addressed more specifically during the upcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Japan, scheduled for December 15.
