CBA releases balance of payments
By Fatma Babayeva
The state budget of Azerbaijan recorded a strong fall in oil and gas revenues in 2015 following the low oil prices.
The current account surplus of the country’s oil and gas sector amounted to $6.55 billion in this period, according to the balance of payments released by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) published on March 29.
The report indicates that the current account surplus of the country’s oil and gas sector fully covers the deficit of the non-oil sector totaling $6.77 billion.
The current account deficit in the balance of payments stood at $222.5 million in 2015, while the figure was $10.42 billion in 2015.
Deficit in the balance of payments amounted to $11.33 billion, while it had a surplus totaling $4.19 billion in 2014. Also, the current account surplus of the country’s oil and gas sector balance of payments amounted to $10.1 billion.
During the calculation of the balance of payments, the average price of oil was $48 per barrel, while a year earlier it was at the level of $95 per barrel.
The analysis of the balance of payments in various sectors shows that like in previous years, the foreign economic operations in the oil and gas sector had a positive balance, while those in the non-oil sector had a negative balance in 2015.
The total volume of the foreign trade turnover stood at $25.4 billion in 2015, while the surplus of the foreign trade balance was $5.8 billion.
In this period, Azerbaijan carried out trade operations with 172 countries. At the same time, 10.5 percent of trade turnover was done with the CIS countries and 89.5 percent with other states.
Azerbaijan has conducted intensive trade with Turkey, Italy, UK, Germany, Russia, U.S., Japan, France, Israel and China. Together, these countries accounted for 67.1 percent of overall export-import operations in Azerbaijan.
A small decline in oil production was registered in Azerbaijan in 2015 (decrease by 10,000 barrels per day to 0.86 million barrels per day), according to OPEC’s report. The organization forecasts another decrease by 40,000 barrels per day to 0.82 million barrels per day in 2016.
The decline of the country’s oil output in 2016 will be due to higher maintenance expectations and the lack of replacement for mature field losses, the report said.
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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva
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