OREANDA-NEWS. On June 27, 2008 this was announced by the VTB vice-president Vasily Titov on Thursday in St. Petersburg during the annual meeting of VTB shareholders. According to him, this decision was taken last week.

As Vasily Titov noted, in both cases VTB will own 100% of the banks’ shares. He also informed that each of transactions will cost about \\$ 25 million, but total amount will slightly exceed \\$ 30 million.

Vasily Titov said that VTB asked for permission of corresponding National Banks, but this procedure will take about two months. The VTB vice president did not specify the banks which will be acquired in Moldova and Tajikistan, noting only that these are universal credit organizations. It should be noted that for the first time possibility of acquiring bank in Moldova was declared in mid-2004, when VTB heads emphasized that VTB is going to acquire two Moldavian banks.

Russian and Moldovan sides have discussed possibility of appearance of VTB at Moldavian market in late 2007. Then, during the press conference devoted to the results of the ninth meeting of intergovernmental commission on trade-economic cooperation, its Russian co-chairman the Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko said that the commission maintains contacts between the commercial structures of both countries, being concerned that Russian financial institutions will start work in Moldova as soon as possible.

According to Andrei Fursenko, appearance of VTB in Moldova will improve business opportunities for interaction between both states. VTB and its subsidiaries (VTB group) is the leading commercial banking group of Russia.