EDB Member States
The Bank’s founding members are the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Tajikistan are members of the Bank. In December 2008 the EDB Council, having considered respective application by the Republic of Belarus, approved admittance of this country , which joined the Agreement Establishing the EDB, and now undergoes the procedures required for becoming full member of the Bank.
In 2008 EDB member states encountered an unprecedented global financial and economic crisis. The structurally interrelated economies of Russia and Kazakhstan suffered the negative effect of a dramatic shrinkage in lending and a drop in raw materials prices. The high dependence of these economies on the prices of oil and other raw material commodities resulted in a decline in tax revenue and a governmental deficit in 2009. In both Russia and Kazakhstan, the most crisis-sensitive sectors are building, production of building materials, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, chemistry, petrochemistry, and finance. The leading industries of the Armenian economy – light industry, agribusiness and mechanical engineering – were also hit hard by the crisis.
The EDB member states consistently strive for greater integration in the CIS and EurAsEC contexts, believing that joining efforts and strengthening trade and economic co-operation will help each member to cope with the challenges of globalisation and find a worthy niche in the world division of labour system. The establishment of the Eurasian Development Bank on the initiative of the Presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan is viewed as a major integration project in the financial and economic sphere in the post-Soviet space, and rightly so.