Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan's net financial assets amounted to $3.4 billion in the first quarter of 2014.

This was highlighted in the balance of payments for January-March 2014, published by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) on June 10.

"This amount was generated through direct investments ($163.5 million), portfolio investments ($76.4 million) and other investments (over $3.206 billion)," CBA said.

Some $112.2 million of the direct investments were made in the oil and gas sector, while $51.3 million fell to other sectors.

Other investments include trade loans and advances ($1.594 billion), loans and borrowings ($21.7 million) and deposits and cash (over $1.590 billion).

The commitments worth $2.837 billion were made in Azerbaijan in the first quarter of 2014, some $941.2 million of which fell to direct investments, while $1.233 billion fell to portfolio investments.

The CBA also noted in the first quarter of 2014, the total value of secondary income operations with foreign countries is estimated at $756.6 million, 49.1 percent of which was receipts by Azerbaijan.

Some 94.4 percent of total receipts on secondary income ($714.2 million) are comprised of remittances of individuals from foreign countries, 2.4 percent-value of humanitarian import goods, and 3.2 percent-other receipts.

In total, surplus of secondary income operations made up positive $14.3 million.

The balance of payments showed that the surplus of the current account in the reported period totaled $3.3 billion, decreasing by 20.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

The surplus of current account of Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector amounted to $5 billion in the first quarter of the current year.

Herewith the current account surplus of oil and gas sector completely covers the current account deficit in the non-oil sector in the amount of $1.6 billion.

Overall balance of payments surplus made up $2.8 billion, increasing by 66.1 percent compared to the same period last year.

The analysis of the balance of payments on sectors showed that, as in previous years, foreign trade operations in the oil and gas sector had a positive surplus and non-oil sector - negative in January-March 2014.

The total foreign trade turnover amounted to $9.5 billion in the first quarter, and the trade surplus to $5.5 billion.

Azerbaijan maintained trade relations with 117 countries in the reported period. Some 7.7 percent of trade turnover came accounted for the CIS countries and 92.3 percent - on other foreign countries.

Azerbaijan led intensive trade with Italy, Turkey, Great Britain, Indonesia, Germany, USA, Russia, Israel, France, and Japan. Some 72.5 percent of export-import operations in Azerbaijan accounted for these countries.

The total volume of foreign loans in the form of direct investments in Azerbaijan's economy totaled $1.9 billion in the first quarter of 2014.