AM005e-X 1 AZERBAIJAN

Transcription

1 AM005e-X 1 AZERBAIJAN

2 Dear participants of the Annual Meeting, Ladies and Gentlemen! First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to our Georgian friends and colleagues, as well as the Georgian authorities for their hospitality and to thank the EBRD for organizing the event at such a high level. During 2014, the world economy has reached a turning stage, coming out of the severe financial crisis and in this regard during the year the global economic recovery went at a slower rate and faced a number of obstacles in its path. However, the transition from stabilization to high, sustainable, balanced growth is not reached yet. Growing geopolitical risks created new complications. Nevertheless, the Bank once again proved that even in the face of economic and political turmoil, the Bank meets the current needs of countries and clients, and is a reliable, stable and multilateral partner. In the previous year, the Bank has successfully implemented projects in various sectors and portfolio amounted to 377 projects totaling 8.9 billion Euros. The distribution of investment operations conducted by the Bank is 0.8 billion Euros in Central Asia, 1.4 billion Euros in Turkey, 2.1 billion Euro in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and 1.7 billion Euro in Southeast Europe and etc., covering the 34 whole country. I think that the EBRD has made a valuable contribution to the development of individual countries and contributed to the global economic recovery. The EBRD is the most important institutional investor in Azerbaijan with a total investment amount of 2.5 billion USD in 155 (one hundred and fifty-five) different projects in the private and public sector. More than 64% (sixty-four) of this amount was invested in the private sector, and about 36% (thirty-six) was directed to support a number of infrastructure projects in the public sector. Having the key meaning for the sustainable economic development of Azerbaijan, both sectors have always been the focus of the EBRD. Dear colleagues! I would like to take this opportunity to inform you about the economic situation in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan regained its independence only 24 years ago, in such a short historical period achieved great economic growth, has completed the transition from a centrally planned system to a market economy through radical reforms in all spheres, and AM005e-X 2

3 has initiated and participated in large international projects, has become to a political, economic and cultural center of the region. Today, macroeconomic and financial stability is insured in our country. Over the past 10 years, GDP increased by 3 times, the state budget revenues by 12 times, foreign trade turnover by 4.3 times, the poverty level decreased by 8 times, unemployment rate was only 4.9%. Foreign exchange reserves exceeded the external debt by about 8 times, the ratio of external debt to GDP is less than 10%. A favorable business environment has been created in Azerbaijan as a result of successfully implemented reforms program. Thus, 200 billion US dollars were invested to the economy for the period 1995 to 2014, of which 52% contained domestic investments and 48% the foreign ones. Only in 2014 the investments amounted to 27.7 billion US dollars, of which 11.5 billion US dollars were foreign investments. Today, diversification of the economy is the main challenge for Azerbaijan. In recent years different measures were undertaken targeted to the development of the sectors of economy, such as the non-oil industry, agriculture, ICT, tourism and others. In the context of the continuous global crisis, when even developed countries face serious financial and social problems, in Azerbaijan it has been a steady development of the economy. Despite the drop in energy prices by more than 2 times, in the first quarter of 2015 growth of the economy was 5.3%. At present, the shares of the non-oil and oil sectors in GDP are 68% and 32% respectively. All these indicators show the successful implementation of programs and projects aimed to diversify the economy. The dynamic development of Azerbaijan allowed the country to initiate and become an active participant in regional projects such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline, Southern Gas Corridor, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway, which enable efficient usage of the entire region s opportunities. The development of human capital has a great importance in Azerbaijan. Within the framework of State Budget s funded Special State Program youth from Azerbaijan studies at the advanced educational institutions and leading scientific centers of the world. The achievements of Azerbaijan are also highly acknowledged by the international organizations. Thus, according to the World Economic Forum report Azerbaijan ranked on the 38 th place on the competitiveness of economy and on the 1 st place among the CIS AM005e-X 3

4 countries. According to UN Report on Human Development Index Azerbaijan has entered the "high human development" group of countries. International rating agencies, such as Standart & Poor s, Moody's, Fitch Ratings steadily upgrade ratings of our country. The economy of Azerbaijan comprises for more than 70% of the economy of the Southern Caucasus. Azerbaijan is a stable partner for development of regional cooperation. However, continuous occupation policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan remains the main problem in this development. Today 20% of the country s territory is being occupied by Armenia, more than 1 million Azerbaijanians live in the status of refugees and internally displaced persons, which caused enormous damage to the Republic of Azerbaijan. On the other hand, Azerbaijan has close economic relations with Georgia. Trade turnover among our countries is raising and today Azerbaijan takes the second place in total trade turnover of Georgia. More than 230 Georgian companies function in Azerbaijan and about 340 companies from Azerbaijan run businesses in Georgia. Azerbaijan companies are the main taxpayers in Georgia. Large investments to the economy of Georgia by Azerbaijani companies increase and as of today direct investments account 700 million US dollars. Azerbaijani companies implement projects in such areas as construction, tourism and transport infrastructure. Yet I consider there is a great potential for further development of cooperation among our countries in several fields of economy. Today Azerbaijan is the main trade partner of EU in the South Caucasus. EU countries share in the goods turnover of Azerbaijan is 47.3%. EU investments into the economy of Azerbaijan for the last 10 years were about 19 billion US dollars including direct investments into the non-oil sector which were about 2.1 billion US dollars. In addition to this, the energy cooperation between EU and Azerbaijan the basis for which was laid in 2006 by the signing of Memorandum of Mutual Understanding on a strategic partnership in the field of energy, having expanded made Azerbaijan an important partner for Europe s energy security supply. At the same time, Azerbaijan is a leader in the region for the quantity and quality of the different projects funded by EU. AM005e-X 4

5 Dear participants of the annual meeting! 2014 was announced as the Year of Industry in Azerbaijan and a number of events were realized in this regard. Priority areas for Azerbaijan are modernization of industry and diversification of non-oil areas, as well as, creation of new priority industries along with traditional industries and industrial parks, strengthening of the industrial potential in the regions, creation of the opportunities which will provide the development of innovative industry. At the same time, with a purpose of acceleration of agricultural modernization, provision of systematic and comprehensive approach to the development of agricultural sector, effective involvement of administrative and financial resources into this field, high promotion of country s agrarian potential the year 2015 was announced as the Year of Agriculture. We hope for continuation of successful cooperation with EBRD in above mentioned areas and extension of loans to small and medium-sized businesses in these fields can be considered in future. Meanwhile implementation of projects in such priority areas as infrastructure and public utilities development, financial sector and capital market support and etc. can be also reviewed. Thank you for your attention. AM005e-X 5