Azerbaijan no longer on list of poor countries
By Mushvig Mehdiyev
Azerbaijan is no longer on the list of poor countries with an average income of two dollars per capita and the World Bank has confirmed that it as a country with an upper middle income, said Salim Muslumov, Labor and Social Protection Minister.
"The poverty rate is measured on the WB methodology, according to which a country with a daily income of two dollars per capita is poor. It would be extremely poor if the average income is one dollar. Parts of our population were among 2.6 billion poor people across the world in 2003 but now Azerbaijan's population are not among them any more since the average income per person in Azerbaijan is $128," Muslumov said.
In 2000, Azerbaijan joined the UN Millennium Development Goals, a program which plans to cut the number of poor people by half in 2015.
"The state programs and socio-economic development works carried out in Azerbaijan over the recent years have led to poverty rate reduction from 49 percent in 2003 to 5 percent today which is three times below the global poverty rate," Muslumov noted.
He said the minimum wage in Azerbaijan has increased by 11.6 times over the last ten years, while the average daily salary per capita climbed by 5.5 times and the average monthly labor pensions by 9.4 times.
Muslumov noted that the $7.2 billion overall income of Azerbaijani population reached to nearly $47.9 billion in recent years.
"In case of a sustainable economic development, it is possible to forecast a regular increase in minimum wages to rise up to 60 percent of the average monthly salary in the next years," he said.
The minister went on to say that the pace of economic growth in Azerbaijan rose by 3.4 times over the last ten years, while the incomes of the population saw a 6.5 times increase.
"GDP per capita increased by 8.4 times in Azerbaijan to reach $7,500 over the mentioned period. We plan to increase the GDP share to $8,000 in 2015, while it will stand at $13,000 per capita under the 'Azerbaijan-2020: Vision to Future' program by 2020," he said.
The World Bank says Azerbaijan, its member-state since 1992, weathered the recent global economic crisis much better than many other countries with a solid rise in income and reduction in poverty. Nevertheless, the post-crisis world is not free of challenges. While it withstood the crisis relatively well, the situation revealed Azerbaijan's needs for a diversified economy, market-based policies and better social services.
The total GDP was over $73.5 billion, poverty rate 5.3 percent and Gross National Income per capita $7,350 in Azerbaijan in 2013, according to the World Bank.
The World Bank and government of Azerbaijan are developing a multi-year Joint Economic Research Program (JERP) that will ensure continuous and timely access to policy advice and technical expertise.
Azerbaijan joined the World Bank in 1992.