31-01-2012 12:30:32

Aliyev praises Azeri rampant growth in Davos

The Azerbaijani economy has tripled in the past seven years, President Ilham Aliyev told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“The country is successfully developing,” he said at an interactive session devoted to Azerbaijan. “Economic development indicators have been truly amazing in the past few years. The growth has amounted to 300 percent since 2004. Certainly, we understand that the largest part of this growth is made up by the oil and gas sector, and this is natural for a country that has been independent for 20 years.”

New goal to double GDP
According to President Aliyev, Azerbaijan has outlined a new goal that envisions further rampant economic growth.

“Our goal is to double the gross domestic product which has already increased three-fold. But we want to double our economy mainly by boosting the non-energy sector. As an oil and gas producing country, we always view the gross domestic product in terms of oil and non-oil GDP. Thus, last year the non-oil industry increased 11 percent and the non-oil sector – 9 percent. Our goal is to modernize and diversify the country and [ensure] rampant development over the next 10-12 years.”

On investments, the president said their amount has made up $110 billion in the past 15 years. In 2011 alone, $20 billion was invested in the Azerbaijani economy, with foreign investments accounting for $7 billion of the figure.

“This shows that Azerbaijan remains an attractive country for foreign companies and this pertains not only to oil and gas. The inflow of direct foreign investments to Azerbaijan is greater than that to any [other] CIS state,” Aliyev said.

The president noted that according to the Davos economic forum’s rating, Azerbaijan leads the way in CIS on economic competitiveness and ranks 55th in the world on this indicator.

He said transparency is one of the key economic achievements made by the resource-rich South Caucasus republic.

“Azerbaijan joined the [Extractive Industries] Transparency Initiative eight years ago and is currently its full-fledged member. We have achieved complete transparency in our energy sector. Now we are changing the system. We are generally applying this approach to the financial system,” Aliyev said.

TAGS: Azerbaijani economy, Ilham Aliyev, World Economic Forum, Davos, oil and non-oil GDP