Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan is the leading country in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States region for foreign investment per capita, Minister of Economic Development Shahin Mustafayev said at a conference dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Azerbaijani National Leader Heydar Aliyev.

According to Mustafayev, whereas earlier the volume of foreign investment exceeded that of domestic investment, the situation has changed in the past five years.

"In the last five years investment worth $32 billion has been made in Azerbaijan's economy, 60 percent of which accounts for the non-oil sector. Today Azerbaijan is itself becoming a country exporting investment," the minister said.

According to Mustafayev, over the past 10 years the growth of the country's non-oil sector exceeded the real growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2.7 times.

"In the past two years the non-oil GDP increased on average by 10 percent per year, in the first quarter of this year - by 11.1 percent. Thus, this year about 100 industrial facilities are expected to be put into operation, and the construction of 90 facilities will continue," Mustafayev said.

According to him, currently the foreign debt of Azerbaijan is 7.5 percent of the GDP, the volume of currency reserves accounts for about 70 percent of the GDP, and public deficit is about one percent.

A government source told Trend news agency that in 2013, Azerbaijan expects a record allocation of funds under projects involving financial institutions.

The source said this year it is expected that the allocated funds in the framework of ongoing projects will exceed $1 billion, a record figure.

"In the framework of many implemented projects, especially in the sphere of improvement of road infrastructure and water supply, preparations have been underway for several years, a tender procedure has been conducted, the contractors determined, and now actual work is beginning," the source said.

In 2012, loans worth $1.2 billion were allocated in accordance with the signed agreements.

According to the source, from this year Azerbaijan will increase the repayment of loans.

The source said it is important to attract loans gradually and for important projects. This is due to two factors: firstly, there is an instruction to reduce the volume of foreign debt, and the other reason is that decrease of the oil price in world markets should be considered as this may cause certain difficulties in the future.

As of January 1, 2013, the foreign national debt of Azerbaijan reached $5.7 billion, which is 10.6 percent of the GDP, according to a governmental report for 2012.

Foreign loans of the country under the agreements signed with international financial institutions reached $11.7 billion, which makes up 21.7 percent of the GDP.