The key direction of Azerbaijn’s economic development will be exports, President Ilham Aliyev stated at a session of the Cabinet dedicated to the results of the socio-economic development in the first 10 months of the year and upcoming tasks. According to the President, at the moment monopolies are one of main problems of Azerbaijan’s economy: “It is a strange logic: if I produce these goods, another person must not do the same? If there is no competition, there will be no development or qualitative production.”
Aliyev admitted that the Azerbaijani market was rather limited. He urged producers to grow and produce such goods which could be exported abroad. The President promised that the government will encourage such an approach.
The preconditions for this are obvious. This year more than 200 enterprises and facilities for production of construction materials, metal works, electrical devices, textiles, and other products began their operation this year. The level of self-production of some construction materials is reaching 100 per cent. According to the Minister of Economy and Industry, Shakhin Mustafayev, at the moment the creation of 30 major farms in 19 regions of Azerbaijan (the overall area is 40 thousand ha) has almost been completed. The harvesting has reached 58-60 hundredweights from each hectare. By the end of the year, the first stage of the creation of agricultural parks in the Shamkir and Khachmaz Regions will be finished; in the Khyzyn Agricultural Park, projecting works are being provided.
For encouraging the financial support of the private sector by the National Fund for Business Support, 4250 businessmen received beneficial loans this year; moreover, 47% of the loans were given in expense of budget resources, and the other 53% on spending on returned money.
For intensification of exports, Azerbaijan is creating logistics centers abroad. “Why do we invest in foreign countries? Because we want our products get to new markets and our businessmen get new opportunities to sell their products comfortably. We should prevent monopolies. We are providing a policy of an open market economy. Our policy, the policy of the state, the policy of President is exactly about this,” Ilham Aliyev said.
Meanwhile, according to Mustafayev, over the first ten months of 2015, the GDP of Azerbaijan grew by 3.7%; while the real pace of the non-oil sector’s growth was 6.4%. This was a consequence of the policy of diversification provided in the country. The surplus value in the non-oil sector grew eightfold in comparison with 2003; and the share of the non-oil sector of GDP reached 68.8%.
According to the index of global competitiveness of the Davos Economic Forum, Azerbaijan takes 40th place (first place in the CIS). Baku thinks that to provide a stable development, development of business should be focused on, foreign investments should be directed to the non-oil sector, the business climate should be improved, mechanisms of regulating checks should be developed, and the number of checks and licenses should be significantly reduced.
