The US Trade and Development Agency (TDA) approved on April 7 the consultancy contract signed on January 18, 2005between State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Overture Financial Services of US. Institutional Capacity Building technical assistance project funded by the US TDA has thus become effective.

Overture team arrived in Baku on April 11 to start providing technical assistance to SOFAZ as per the contract. The contract is scheduled to be completed in 9 months.

New York based Overture has been awarded the TDA funded project in November 2004. The company specializes in design and implementation of turnkey and state-of-the art investment platforms for financial institutions. It also provides consulting and personnel training services to investment managers, pension funds and institutional funds for the establishment of such platforms.

The underlying grant agreement worth $1.091 million was signed between TDA and SOFAZ in May 2004 in Baku.