Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry is completely prepared for payment of increased salaries, pensions and other social benefits in accordance with the orders signed by President Ilham Aliyev, Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said on September 2 in a speech on local television.

"This is a very important social package that will cover about three million citizens of Azerbaijan, the majority of whom are employees of the public sector entities, in particular, those in the education sector (422,000 people) and healthcare (about 140,000 people). At the same time, the increase of salaries will affect organizations of the social welfare sector, science, culture, youth and sports sectors," the minister said.

According to the signed orders, there are 700,000 employees of organizations financed from the state budget who will benefit from the increase.

"The policy of increasing salaries in Azerbaijan carried out by the President is consistent. The previous salary increase was in the beginning of 2012 and from September 1, 2013 there is an increase of the salaries of almost all employees in the public sector. Since 2003, this is the 12th salary increase, and thus the minimum average monthly nominal wage was increased from 9 to 105 manats in accordance with the latest order of the President," Sharifov said.

The minister went on to say that in nominal terms, the minimum wage has increased more than 10 times over the last 10 years, while the inflation rate doubled over this period of time.

"This way, the real incomes of the population, including public sector employees, significantly increased. At the same time, an increase of the average monthly wage in the private sector is seen and for the first half of 2013 this index exceeded 410 manats, which is a great indicator. In 2003 the average monthly wage in nominal terms in the country was 77 manats, so, we can observe a 5.3-fold increase," the minister said.

In accordance with the decisions taken, 200 million manats were allocated in the 2013 budget to address these matters regarding about three million people in the country of over 9 million.

According to Sharifov, in 2014, it is planned to allocate an additional 600 million manats for the implementation of these decisions.

Touching on the increase of social benefits, which will affect more than 400,000 people, the minister said that the payments have grown by at least 10 percent and a maximum of 60 percent. The increase will also affect about 540,000 IDPs.

The official exchange rate on September 2 was 0.7844 AZN (manats) / USD.

President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to increase the wages on August 20 to strengthen social protection of social security institutions' employees financed from the state budget, and to increase the government's attention to them.

According to the State Statistics Committee, the average monthly salary of employed persons in Azerbaijan amounted to 408.8 manats in January-May 2013, which is 6.8 percent more than in the same period of 2012.

According to the Committee, the nominal income of the Azerbaijani population totaled 15.831 billion manats in the first half of the year, which is up by 7.1 percent as compared to January-June 2012.

In the first half of 2013, the nominal income per capita grew by 5.7 percent and amounted to almost 1,709 manats.

Revenues at the disposal of the public after payment of all the mandatory fees amounted to 14.354 billion manats -- 7.1 percent above the figure posted in the same period of 2012. Real income per capita grew by 5.7 percent to about 1,550 manats.