It is my pleasure to present to you the detailed annual report about the activities of the Bank for 2009, which reflects its achievements and performance throughout the year. The EIB activities during this year were accompanied by economic and structural changes, which resulted in certain implications on the performance of the Bank on one hand, and influenced its legal status and ownership on the other.

Economic activities in the UAE, including those of industrial sector, were influenced by the current global financial crisis, and that drove many industrial investors to shy away from carrying out new projects. Meanwhile, some of those investors suffered shortage of liquidity due to the conservative credit policies adopted by commercial banks by the end of 2008 and early 2009.

Moreover, the EIB witnessed structural changes manifested in the acquisition of the entire capital of the Bank by the UAE federal government, represented by the Ministry of Finance, along with a move to a merger with the Real Estate Bank, under a new name “Emirates Development Bank”.

This process will result in maximizing the funding capacity of the Emirates Development Bank, and multiplying its activities and will help the new-born Bank perform its developmental role, in a way well-suited with the changes that occurred in the local economy during the last three decades.

Despite the ramifications of the financial crisis, the EIB managed to continue its financing and developmental activities in 2009, thanks to stable economic and financial situations in the UAE, particularly after the rise of oil prices in the second half of the year. The EIB also benefitted from the government procedures which led to provide liquidity to local market and augmented confidence in UAE economy.

In this context, the EIB played a key role in revealing and explaining the real economic status in the UAE through studies and data published in the Bank’s Monthly Bulletin. Through those reports and studies, many facts were disclosed showing the limited impacts of the global financial crisis on our National economy. They also explained the factors which will help expedite the recovery of economic activities in the country.

In the field of financing, the Bank studied 34 industrial projects during the year, out of which 27 projects were approved to be financed, and these projects were granted loans and facilities with a total value of AED 274.50 million.

By adding the volume of finance in this year to the accumulated volume in previous years, the number of projects studied by the Bank reached to 871 projects, out of which 640 had been approved to be financed with a total value of AED 4860.09 million.

As for the volume of disbursed loans and facilities during 2009, it amounted to AED 331.52 million, compared to AED 447.82 million in 2008.

By adding the volume of disbursed loans and facilities in this year to the accumulated volume of the same in previous years, the total value of disbursed loans and facilities by the end of year 2009 reaches to AED 3572.00 million, as shown in the following table:

Number of Loan Applications (1999-2009)

Volume of Loans and Facilities (1999-2009)
(AED Million)

By the end of 2009, the distribution of loans and facilities among various industrial sectors appeared as per the following table:

Sectorial Distribution of EIB Loans & Facilities

To follow up  and ensure the safety of financial and managerial status of the projects financed by the Bank, EIB staff conducted many field visits to the sites of those projects.

By the end of 2009, the fully recovered loans and facilities were 309 loans with a value of AED 1575.31 million, inclusive of due administrative and banking fees, as most of the clients repaid the installments of their loans and facilities on scheduled maturity dates.

Along with financing operations, the EIB displayed excellent performance in terms of conducting studies and researches and publishing data relevant to the economic and industrial development in the UAE and GCC countries. These research efforts contributed to the preparation of sectorial studies, and encouraged investment in industrial sector in particular and investment in other sectors in general.

In the same context, the Bank prepared 17 industrial profiles, which helped conduct feasibility studies for projects intended to be implemented by the private industrial sector in various Emirates of the UAE.