OREANDA-NEWS. April 9, 2008. "The National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA) expects the increasing trend of Azerbaijan's banking system to slow down a little in 2008 due to the toughening regulations and measures to decrease banking risks that started in 2007," NBA's Board Member, Rufat Aslanli said on April 8 during the international financial conference in Baku. Aslanli explained NBA's actions as preventive ones required because of the crisis in the international financial markets. "In 2007 we recorded more than threefold increase in the banks' external borrowings that equaled AZN 1,152 million. But this was only 6.6% of the GDP and 18.9% of the entire banking liabilities. In other words, the situation is not critical yet and NBA controls it completely," he said. "The analysis of the banks' external borrowings shows that a little more than 50% of them are resources with terms not exceeding 1 year. But the banks' liquidity is retained at a normal level and extra funds will not be needed to repay the banks' loans. Besides, only 21 of the existing 46 banks receive loans from abroad," Aslanli said. Aslanli also said the local banks' risks decrease steadily, which improves the composition of their assets. The part of overdue loans decreases every year. Talking about Azerbaijan's financial stability, Aslanli said Azerbaijan's foreign debt only was 32.2% of the strategic currency reserves in 2007. These reserves should grow from \\$7.5 billion to \\$14 billion in 2008.