Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani state oil fund Sofar`s assets increased 9.6 per cent in the first half of 2012, amounting to $32.666 billion, the Fund`s executive director Shahmar Movsumov has said.

Movsumov told a press conference on the results of operations in the first half-year that revenues of Sofar amounted to nearly 7.392bn manats ($9.416bn) and expenses - to over 4.878 billion manats ($6.214bn) in the six-month period.

According to Movsumov, 95.9 per cent of the fund`s revenues came from the sale of oil and gas. Income from the implementation of oil contracts made up almost 7.1bn manats, with the sale of profit oil and gas amounting to more than 7.091 billion manats and transit payments - 3.8 million manats.

Revenues from assets transferred by foreign investors amounted to 0.2 million manats in January-June. Some 292.1 million manats came from the management of the oil fund. Bonus payments amounted to 1.6 million manats.

As for expenses, Movsumov said that 162.5 million manats were spent on activities to improve the well-being of refugees and IDPs displaced as a result of the 1990s war with Armenia, and 67 million manats - to finance the project of reconstruction of the Samur-Absheron irrigation system.

Transfers to the state budget exceeded 4.592 billion manats. 5 million manats were spent on the education of Azerbaijani students abroad as part of the state program for 2007-2015. In addition, 37 million manats were directed to finance the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway.

The expenses on managing the fund amounted to 14.3 million manats. Spending resulting from exchange rate differences made up 289.2 million manats, Movsumov said.

Movsumov said Sofar intends to start buying shares of major international companies from September this year, and $600 million has been allocated for the purpose.

He also said Sofar began buying gold in the first quarter of 2012 and the amount of acquired gold was 6.847 tons (220,146 ounces) in the first half-year. In total, he said, within two years the fund plans to purchase about 30 tons of gold ``step by step in connection with the risk of price change``.

Sofar was established in 1999 and at that time its assets constituted only $271 million. The main purposes of the fund are to accumulate funds and place assets abroad to minimize the negative impact on the economy, preventing the ``Dutch disease``, and to ensure savings for future generations.