Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that the surplus in Azerbaijan's current account balance will decrease by 9.9 percent by 2015.

"The fund expects the country's GDP to decline by 15 percent by the end of 2014," the IMF said on June 5.

This figure stood at 19.7 percent in 2013.

The Central Bank of Azerbaijan said earlier that the current account balance amounted to $12.3 billion, decreasing by 17.22 percent in 2013 compared to the same period of the year before. The current account surplus of Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector amounted to $22.1 billion in the reported period.

The IMF also said the surplus of the current operation account of oil and gas sector is fully covered by the deficit of current account operation of non-oil sector by $9.8 billion.

The IMF also predicts a slowdown in the pace of national economy from five percent in 2014 to 4.6 percent in late 2015.

Azerbaijan's GDP amounted to 18.2 billion manats at a nominal growth of 3.96 percent per annum in January-April.

Based on a program on socio-economic development of Azerbaijan, prepared by the Ministry of Economy and Industry, the real GDP growth of the country is expected to reach 5.2 percent in 2014. In 2015, the GDP is projected to reach 59.4 billion manats.

Azerbaijan joined IMF on September 18, 1992. During the years of cooperation with the fund, Azerbaijan attracted IMF's loans worth $577.3 million for implementing six programs as part of its economic reforms.

The cooperation between IMF and Azerbaijan was particularly intensive between 1995 and 2005. Throughout these years, Azerbaijan often enjoyed IMF's consulting and financial assistance to implement its economic programs.

IMF's office was opened in Baku in 1992, and despite the fact that its staff has been reduced since 2009, the fund is still an important partner of Azerbaijani government.

The cooperation between Azerbaijan and IMF also played an important role in economic recovery during the global financial crisis.