Azernews.Az

By Aynur Karimova

President Ilham Aliyev has set new political, economic and social goals and priorities for Azerbaijan in 2016 at the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on the results of socio-economic development in the first quarter of 2016 and the future tasks.

The agenda of the meeting, which was held on April 9, included various issues ranging from recent tensions on the line of contact of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Armed Forces to Azerbaijan's political, economic and social achievements in the reported period.

Speaking about Armenian armed provocation committed against Azerbaijan earlier this month, President Aliyev said that it was foiled, and the enemy was given a fitting rebuff.

"Azerbaijan was able to protect its lands, and to further strengthen the military position. This bloody clash once again showed that Armenia continues its occupation policy, does not want peace and is trying to disrupt the negotiation process," he said.

Armenian Armed Forces, which continue to violate the truce on the contact line of troops in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region despite the achieved agreement on ceasefire, aims to keep the status quo unchanged.

Despite Armenia's destructive position in the settlement of the conflict, Azerbaijan has always stated that Baku is in favor of its peaceful solution.

President Aliyev believes that Azerbaijan, as a leading country in the South Caucasus region, has set the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as its primary goal. The stronger becomes Azerbaijan in political, economic and in all other fields, the closer it will be to the solution of the conflict.

Therefore, Azerbaijan should further accelerate the dynamics of our development and continue sustainable development in the economic field.

The geography of the Azerbaijani president's visit, as well as statements made in the address of this energy-rich country once again shows that Azerbaijan conducts very active and multifaceted foreign policy. Also, confidence of the international community in Azerbaijan, known as a very reliable partner, is increasing year by year.

Today, Azerbaijan is a core part of new formats of regional cooperation, such as Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia, Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey, Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey, as well as Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan. All these tripartite initiatives are very important for ensuring security and deepening cooperation in the region.

Economy in focus

In the first quarter of 2016, Azerbaijan also took decisive economic measures. It is expected that the current year will be remembered for deep economic reforms.

Azerbaijan has made very serious decisions towards improving the business environment, increasing our export potential, attracting foreign investments to Azerbaijan, and increasing local production.

To achieve this goal, many orders and laws have been adopted and signed since the beginning of the year.

President Aliyev stressed the necessity of taking further measures regarding financial discipline and transparency in the country and said that the whole economic and financial sector of Azerbaijan should be developed based on the most advanced principles.

"First of all, it is necessary to improve the control mechanisms, and transparency must be fully ensured," he added.

Despite the fact that oil prices have fallen sharply and are still at a very low level, as well as Azerbaijan's GDP decreased in the reported period, President Aliyev believes that the country's revenues will increase due to new achievements in the non-oil sector.

One of Azerbaijan's economic achievements in this period was 5-percent growth in the non-oil sector of the national economy. This indicator gives good hope for more rapid development of the non-oil sector in the country, which is one of the main goals set before the government.

"Today, the non-oil sector constitutes a major part of the economy of Azerbaijan. We have achieved this and in the future, of course, we should try to make the non-oil sector to have more weight in our export," President Aliyev stressed.

Thus, despite the ongoing financial and economic crisis and decrease of Azerbaijan's revenues, the South Caucasus nation has reduced the risks to a minimum thanks to very operational steps, deep economic reforms and wise foreign policy.

Achievements in social sector

The first quarter of 2016 was productive in terms of social protection of population. The government witnessed significant progress in ensuring employment of the population. In particular, Azerbaijan created 37,000 new jobs, including 31,000 permanent jobs in that period. These newly-created jobs will give an impetus to keeping the unemployment rate at a low level, which currently stands at 5 percent.

These figures show that social policy has always been and will continue to be a priority for Azerbaijan, which is a social state. President Aliyev said that economic reforms, as well as successful oil and gas policy are aimed at the people to live better.

Azerbaijan is also among few countries that have overcome the ongoing economic and financial crisis with minimal losses. Despite the decrease of oil prices by 3-4 times, salaries and pensions increased by 10 percent this year.

Transport sector is priority

Azerbaijan, located on the crossroads of East and West and on the conjunction of important international transport routes, conducted active works towards the establishment of the North-South and East-West (TRACECA) transport corridors.

President Aliyev believes that the main condition for the establishment of the North-South corridor is the Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia trilateral cooperation.

This transport corridor is very important for Azerbaijan both in economic terms and in terms of security and tourism. Also, after the completion of the implementation of this transport corridor, the Azerbaijani budget will receive huge economic benefits. If new countries such as Pakistan, India, and the North European countries join this corridor, the volume of cargoes passing through Azerbaijan's territory will increase significantly.

In the first quarter, Azerbaijan also conducted active work towards the establishment of TRACECA. Azerbaijan is working in a tripartite format - the format of Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey - for implementation of this project.

Today, one can say with no doubt that Azerbaijan is again in the center of two corridors. Based on Baku's positive friendship and partnership relations with neighboring countries, the implementation of both these projects are seen as possible.

The first quarter of 2016 was remembered in Azerbaijan for other major events as well - President Aliyev's participation at the 4th Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, the second meeting of the Advisory Council of the Southern Gas Corridor in Baku, as well as the IV Global Baku Forum.

"If we consider that Azerbaijan is not a nuclear power, there is no nuclear power station and nuclear industry in Azerbaijan, the invitation of Azerbaijan to this prestigious event is a manifestation of respect to us by the government, the president of the U.S. and reflects our role in this region. Azerbaijan is a reliable partner in prevention of illicit traffic of nuclear materials," President Aliyev said.

The second meeting of the Advisory Council of the Southern Gas Corridor, which was held in Baku in February 29, was very important event in Azerbaijan's energy sector as during this meeting the leading role of Azerbaijan in this sphere was once again marked in the adopted declaration.

Important goals are set

In his closing remarks, President Aliyev set very important tasks before the relevant ministries.

He instructed all the ministers to work hard in order to accomplish the tasks set before them, and to achieve further development of the Azerbaijani economy and better living conditions of the population.

This year Azerbaijan, a country in a state of war, will pay more attention to army building. Today, the Azerbaijani army is among the strongest armies in the world both for its logistics and equipment, and in terms of its combat capability. President Aliyev believes that to achieve further strengthening of the army, Azerbaijan should develop economy even faster.

Azerbaijan is also expected to involve huge amount of foreign investment in various sectors of the national economy. To achieve this goal, the government was instructed to ensure transparent economic and financial system, as well as the rule of law.

Azerbaijan is also keen on achieving rapid development of non-oil sector, to create new jobs, new production areas of export orientation, as well as establishing new industrial zones in each region.

This year, Azerbaijan will take decisive measures towards the implementation of the program on construction of social housing, which will be presented to the public in the near future.

"This is a new initiative. In some countries, this practice is being applied. We are studying and studied positive practices. There is a great need and demand in it," President Aliyev said.

It is expected that the construction of social housing will be started in all cities, regional centers with an aim to reduce unemployment in the regions and solve the housing problems of low-income population with limited material possibilities.

This year, the government will also implement over 40 rural road projects and 250 million manats ($163.7 million) will be allocated for this purpose. Also, works for establishment of the Alat international sea trade port will be accelerated.

Further development of the agrarian sector will be among the priorities of the government in 2016.

The development of agriculture has always been a priority for Baku. Therefore, President Aliyev instructed the government to further accelerate the export of agricultural products.

This year Azerbaijan is expected to witness rapid development of cotton breeding, sericulture, tobacco cultivation and tea growing, as well as viticulture.

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

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