Azeri President adopt design of four banknotes

"The design of the coins reflects the details of the design of banknotes in compliance with the concept of "Unified family," Rustamov underlined.

According to Rustamov, a group of designers will arrive in Azerbaijan next Monday with sketches of the design of two banknotes of high-value. "The banknotes of the high-value will comprise less than 5% of all banknotes in circulation, as they frequently implement only the representative function in difference to the first four with ‘working’ function. So, currently we are working over the design of two coins and two banknotes. The designs will be submitted to the President as soon as they are ready,” Rustamov underlined.  

Rustamov said that during the functioning of old banknotes the false ones comprised the few hundredth percent, while the forgery was implemented in primitive methods, in particular, through copying.

The National Bank ahs recently concluded a contract with Austrian company Osterreicheichische Banknoten und Sicherheitsduck on the printing and coinage of new denominated banknotes and coins. Earlier, the British company Thomas De La Rue was expected to carry out the printing of new banknotes in partnership with its subcontractor Royal Mint. There several reasons for refusal from Thomas De La Rue: firstly, during the consultations the Swiss Central Bank presented to the NBA several standard requirements defined for money, in particular their coincidence to automation. During the talks it was revealed that Thomas De La Rue was in coincidence to meet the requirements. Secondly, there evolved a problem with the unification of the design and the print. Now one and the same company will be involved in the development of design and print of manat. So, Azerbaijan would be able to save 1m pounds, in particular, at the expense of cut in transport expenses, as it was necessary to deliver 800 tons of metal to Britain. The contract will cost 16m euros (some $19.2m), whereas it was planned to spend around 11.5m pounds in this respect (some $20.7m).

The denominated mantas will be put into circulation in Azerbaijan since 1 January 2006, while manta of old design will fall into disuse from 1 January 2007. The Azerbaijani government will introduce the 5,000-time denomination and put new 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100-manat banknotes and 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 50-gepik (1/100 manat) coins into circulation.