Turkey's Ziraat Bank to become sole owner of Uzbekistan's UTBank

Turkish state lender Ziraat Bank is set to become the sole owner of the Uzbekistan bank UTBANK by buying the shares that it does not already own.

Half of UTBANK’s shares belong to the Ziraat Finance Group and the other 50 percent belongs to another Uzbekistan bank -- Agrobank, which serves the agricultural sector in Uzbekistan, Ilker Met, the head of Ziraat Bank's Enterprise Architecture Group.

The bank would also be rebranded once the purchase has been completed.

Met said that since its establishment, UTBANK had contributed to the development of foreign trade and production between the two countries.

A preliminarily agreement was signed for Ziraat Bank to buy UTBANK's shares now held by Agrobank, Met said.

"After the agreement, we are working to complete the share transfer in a short order and plan to get into Uzbekistan in 2018 under the brand 'Ziraat Bank-Uzbekistan'," he added.

He said, "Factors such as the Uzbekistan's membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ease of exports among the Commonwealth of Independent States, the incentives to producers in the country, and the rich agricultural and underground resources show the importance of Uzbekistan, which is already a significant part of the Silk Road."

Direct investments in Uzbekistan from Turkey have reached nearly $1 billion, a figure expected to rise in the future, he stressed.

It was not immediately clear how much Ziraat was paying Agrobank for the remaining shares.

Ziraat, established in 1863, employs more than 20,000 people in 1,812 branches in Turkey and in 18 foreign countries, including Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Russia, the UK, the US, Georgia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Bahrain, Montenegro, and Azerbaijan, according to its website.