Azernews.Az

By Gulgiz Dadashova

The main indicators and objectives for Azerbaijan's state budget were successfully implemented in 2012, which created favorable conditions for maintaining macroeconomic stability, increasing incomes of citizens and improving the economic power of the state despite the global financial crisis.

Azerbaijan did not use external borrowing to cover the budget deficit in 2012, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Heydar Asadov said during the discussions over the bill on the 2012 state budget in parliament last week.

"The state followed the limit set on foreign borrowing, which was approved in the amount of more than 2 billion manats. Overall, in the last three to four years, limits on the internal and external debt have been executed by just 50-60 percent and no more," Asadov said.

The limit on domestic borrowing for 2012 was projected at 1 billion manats.

Asadov went to say that though the 2012 budget deficit was projected at 634 million manats, the figure actually made up 135 million manats.

"It should be noted that to cover the shortfall, neither external borrowing was used nor bonds were issued to be placed on foreign capital markets. The deficit was covered entirely by internal resources. Given that 465 million manats accumulated at the treasury account in late 2012, which hypothetically can be used to cover the budget deficit, it can be argued that the 2012 budget was executed with a surplus, " he said.

The draft law on the execution of last year's budget was approved on May 31. Revenues of Azerbaijan's budget in 2012 amounted to 17.282 billion manats, and its implementation was by 101.4 percent, which is 1.581 billion manats or 10.1 percent over 2011.

The share of budget revenue in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country amounted to 32 percent, which is 1.9 percent more than in 2011.

In 2012, within the implementation of the state budget, stable financing of all the envisioned projects, in particular, social financing -- pensions, salaries, allowances, etc. -- was carried out.