Stable Azerbaijan attractive for foreign investors, says President Aliyev
By Trend
Azerbaijan is a land of stability, and investors invest in stable places, said the country’s President Ilham Aliyev, speaking at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers dedicated to results of socio-economic development in the first half of 2017 and objectives for the future.
“The number of stable counties is reducing dramatically. Therefore, I am sure that in the future, even more foreign investors will appeal us to invest in Azerbaijan,” Ilham Aliyev said in his opening speech at the meeting.
The president went on to add that $5 billion was invested in Azerbaijan’s economy in six months of 2017.
“Today capital investments decrease almost in all countries by force of financial difficulties and problems. However, Azerbaijan attracts investments and most of them are foreign investments. That is, Azerbaijan is a very attractive country for foreign investors. Why? Not only because we have good investment environment, but because Azerbaijan is a land of stability and investors make investments only in stable places,” President Ilham Aliyev said.
The president noted that Azerbaijan’s non-oil economy grew by 1.7 percent in the first half of 2017.
“This is a very good indicator. I particularly note the non-oil economy because the general economic indicator, that is the Gross Domestic Product indicator, depends mainly on oil production and oil prices. And they change,” he said.
“Therefore, this cannot be the main factor for evaluating our work. The growth of the non-oil economy by 1.7 percent is the result of the economic reforms we implement. I believe this is a very good indicator, especially in present conditions,” he said.
“The non-oil industry grew even more. The growth is 4.4 percent here. I think this is also the best possible indicator. This shows that the reforms and the policy we pursue yield results,” said Ilham Aliyev.
The Azerbaijani president noted that the country’s currency reserves have increased by about $3 billion since early 2017.
“Our currency reserves increased to $40.6 billion. This is also a very good indicator as from the beginning of the year until present, our currency reserves have increased by about $3 billion,” President Ilham Aliyev said.
“Oil prices fell sharply and then rose to a certain extent. It is likely that they will fall again. And our currency reserves increase. This happens thanks to a well thought out policy, because we have never engaged in populism. We have always engaged in long-term development of our country. We both saved up and carried out reforms, and allocated funds only for strategically important projects. Of course, we reduced import and increased export. There is no budget problem. Therefore, transfers from the Oil Fund to the budget decreased. So, the increase of currency reserves in the first six months of the year by $3 billion is an excellent result.”
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