Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The revision of Azerbaijan’s state budget for 2017 is needed to ensure the stability of the banking and financial systems, said Samir Sharifov, the country’s Finance Minister.

He made the remarks during the discussion of the relevant bill at a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, Industry and Entrepreneurship.

Sharifov noted that the need to regulate Azerbaijan’s external and internal obligations is among other reasons.

Revenues of the revised state budget are projected at 16.766 billion manats ($9.934 billion) that is by 511 million manats ($302 million) or 3.1 percent more than the initial forecast for 2017.

Meanwhile, expenditures of the revised state budget are expected at 17.941 billion manats that is by 1.041 billion manats ($616 million) or 6.2 percent more than that initial forecast.

The state budget’s deficit will amount to 1.175 billion manats ($696 million) (an increase by 530 million manats), which will account for 1.8 percent of Azerbaijan’s GDP expected for 2017.

As part of the state budget’s revision, continued Sharifov, it is planned to increase the upper limit on external loan from 4 to 4.5 billion manats for the issue of Eurobonds by the International Bank of Azerbaijan.

Another reason for the increase in expenditures of the state budget is the regulation of expenditures to maintain kindergartens owned by the state, as well as the creation of financial support for new kindergartens in the country’s cities and districts.

At the end of the meeting, the draft law on revision of the state budget for 2017 was recommended for discussion at a plenary session of the Azerbaijani Parliament.

A source in the country’s parliament told Trend that the increase in expenditures is also related to the allocation of additional funds for the Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) and the state oil company SOCAR. Moreover, the Azerbaijani state will allocate four billion manats for restructuring of foreign obligations of the International Bank of Azerbaijan.

The source added that revenues of the state budget totaled 3.591 billion manats ($2,128 billion) in the 1Q17 while the forecast was 3.473 billion manats, which means the overfulfilment of forecast by 3.4 percent.

Revenues of the state budget are approved in the amount of 16.255 billion manats ($9.604 billion), expenses – in the amount of 16.9 billion manats, according to the current law “On the State Budget of Azerbaijan for 2017”.

Budget forecasts are formed on the basis of the price of oil at $40 per barrel.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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