Azernews.Az

By Aynur Karimova

Azerbaijan has improved its position on the global Open Budget Index by 16 points and has taken 42nd place among 102 world countries.

According to the Open Budget Survey 2015 report, Azerbaijan gained 51 points out of 100 points.

Open Budget Survey 2015 is the only independent, regular and comparative analysis of transparency, participation and public control of budget processes around the world.

The co-author of the report, Kanan Aslanli from Azerbaijan, told Trend that the main reason standing behind the improvement of the country's position in the global index is the publication of state budget indicators by the Finance Ministry, which ensures the openness of the budget to the public.

Azerbaijan is ahead of 60 of 102 countries, including Turkey (44 points), Ukraine (46 points), Serbia (47 points), China (14 points), Egypt (16 points), etc.

The leader in state budget transparency is New Zealand, which earned at total of 88 points. New Zealand is followed by Sweden (87 points) South Africa (86 points), Norway (84 points) and the U.S. (81 points).

According to the report, the average Open Budget Index is 45 out of 100 points, and the median is 46 points.

"The results show that the governments, as a rule, are not able to publish key documents, and the published documents, as a rule, do not have enough details that are important for understanding, monitoring and impact on public expenditures, revenues and debts," the document said.

At the same time, Azerbaijan gained only 19 points from an average of 25 in the evaluation of public participation in the budget process.

Aslanli believes that Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry and the parliamentary committee on economic policy may hold public hearings on the discussion of the state budget in order to improve the situation.

On September 1, Azerbaijan's Cabinet of Ministers discussed a budget package for 2016 under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Artur Rasizade. Following discussions, it was decided to submit the budget package to the Azerbaijani president.

The state budget was developed taking into account processes that are underway in the world and the Azerbaijani economy. The main budget issue for 2016 will be the development of the non-oil sector, non-oil exports in particular.

The price of oil was set at $50 per barrel when forecasting the budget indices for 2016.

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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova

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