Extraordinary Meeting of Azerbaijani Government

Expanded meeting of the Azerbaijani government on the basis of socio-economic development of the country in the first quarter of 2013 was held on 14 April, under the presidency of Ilham Aliyev. Contrary to tradition, the record is not published.

This is the third speech of the head of state at a meeting of the government since the beginning of the year. The first was on January 15 on the basis of socio-economic development of the country in 2012, the second - on February 12 on the implementation of the socio-economic development of regions in 2009-2013.

Presidential statements and estimates for the first two meetings were characterized by contradictions.

In January, he spoke of the increase in GDP of 2.2%, while the non-oil sector (at the expense of investment projects financed by the state oil fund) by 9.7%. Macroeconomic growth has attracted investment worth $ 22 billion, of which $ 13 billion was the state capital injections. The unemployment rate was 5.2%, bringing a declined poverty rate over the year from 7.6 to 6%. The president promised as a result of the implementation of government programs to reduce this figure to zero.

Speaking of the prospects for 2013, Aliyev noted the increase in the expenditure of the state budget to 20 billion manats (about 35.65% of the GDP). Of these funds, 6 billion 915.2 million manat or 34.9% of expenditure will be spent on public investment program - the construction of roads, irrigation, carrying water pipes, gas pipes and sewage systems, construction of alternative energy sources. Introduced in this country, the power plants will add nearly one thousand megawatts of electricity, which will further strengthen the energy security of Azerbaijan.

But in a speech on February 12 after mass protests by residents of the district of Ismailly, Ilham Aliyev admitted that the actions of high-ranking officials do not fit his vision of the program of socio-economic development. The President specifically said that he knew about the situation, and then began unfounded assumptions informing him wrong. So, Aliyev declared inadmissible the forced engagement of entrepreneurs to work on improvement in areas at their expense, spoke about the inadmissibility of corruption in agriculture, noted the need for resolute fight against bureaucratic arbitrariness.

The text of the April demonstration has not been published yet, but if we talk about the economic component of the first quarter as a whole, the processes are in the rhythm of swing, and a national oil company (SOCAR) independent of the Ministry of Finance, has continued an active policy to build overseas assets. So, it signed in March with a subsidiary of the Dutch company Moeller-Maersk agreement for the construction of the port of Aliaga near Izmir. According to the document, to 2015, inclusive, will be commissioned the first phase of the port and the Aegean terminal with an investment of $ 300 million with an initial capacity of 1.5 million (the capacity to 4 million) containers. And this background that, according to SOCAR, by April 1, oil exports declined in comparison with the previous year by 11.6%.

Due to the development of investment projects, the GDP growth in the three months amounted to slightly more than 3%, indicating extensive economic growth does not affect the development of the real sector of the economy. In the non-oil sector, corruption, monopolies, unhealthy competition and the restriction of freedoms of entrepreneurs continued to spread.

The meeting held on Sunday was associated by the observers with serious protests of the President against the government in the fateful year of the presidential election. Five years ago, Aliyev held a similar emergency meeting on Saturday after an electric power cut of several hours across the country. Not all the ministers were in time for the meeting. -0 –