Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Baku hosted a conference organized by the ruling New Azerbaijan Party on December 23.

Addressing the 'Azerbaijan 2013-2018: Towards New Targets' conference, Azerbaijan's vice Prime Minister and deputy chairman and executive secretary of the ruling party Ali Ahmedov said Azerbaijan will achieve more success under President Ilham Aliyev's leadership in the future.

In his remarks, first vise Prime Minister Yagub Eyubov said Azerbaijan has maintained its economic leadership among the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in the past five years.

He said international rating agencies improved Azerbaijan's rating even during the global economic crisis.

Eyubov also said Azerbaijan's oil strategy plays an important role in ensuring the energy security of not only the region, but also Europe nowadays.

The implementation of the second stage of developing Azerbaijan's giant Shah Deniz gas condensate field in the Caspian Sea and the creation of the Trans-Adriatic and Trans-Anatolian gas pipelines will turn Azerbaijan into one of the largest energy suppliers of the world, he said.

Eyubov also said the launch of a telecommunication satellite into the orbit will make its contribution to the development of this and other fields in Azerbaijan.

Speaking at the event, Azerbaijan's Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said Azerbaijan will enter the TOP-50 countries for GDP volume in the next five years.

"If Azerbaijan ranked 108th for GDP volume and 154th for GDP per capita in 2003, it ranked 69th and 78th, respectively, in 2012," the minister said.

Azerbaijan's GDP has increased by 3.4 times, the GDP in the non-oil sector by 2.7 times and GDP per capita by three times in the past 10 years, he said.

"Under the development concept 'Azerbaijan-2020: Outlook for the future', it is planned to double the GDP per capita," Sharifov said.

The minister also said Azerbaijan plans to rank third in the volume of the insurance market among the CIS countries in 2018.

"Today the insurance market is one of the most dynamically developing spheres of Azerbaijan's economy, and a lot of attention is paid to the development of this sector. Our aim is to turn insurance into an additional tool that will improve social support for the country's population and help them avoid material losses," the minister said.

The minister also said Azerbaijan plans to maintain the foreign debt rate at a level that doesn't exceed 10 percent of the GDP in the next five years.

The country's foreign debt amounts to 8.3 percent of the GDP at present, the minister said.

He said the country's external debt totals 8.3 percent of the GDP.

"An indicator of 40 percent of the GDP is considered an acceptable practice in the world, and in some developed countries it reaches 70-80 percent," the minister said.

Sharifov also said the external debt of the country is formed mainly by long-term loans from international financial institutions, on terms favorable to Azerbaijan.

Agreements worth $11.6 billion were signed as of July 1, 2013 between Azerbaijan and international financial institutions and other credit organizations to support the country's economic reforms and finance individual priority projects.

The data provided by credit organizations shows that the total external state debt on loans used under the signed agreements totals $5.5 billion.

In his remarks, Communication and Information Technologies Minister Ali Abbasov said the development of ICT in Azerbaijan is highly appreciated by international organizations.

"Azerbaijan holds the first place in various indicators, including the number of Internet users among the CIS and Central Asian countries with an indicator of 70 percent," he said.

The minister said the annual income of Azerbaijan's information and communication technologies sector will reach $8-8.5 billion in 2020.