In a deep offside

The Swiss business school IMD has published the Index of countries on the level of social well-being (http://www.imd.org/globalassets/wcc/docs/release-2017/2017-world_competitiveness_ranking.pdf). The studies covered more than 60 countries around the world. This year, the leader of the rating was Hong Kong, retaining last year's result and gaining a maximum of 100 points. Favorites were also Switzerland (99.6), Singapore (99.4), USA (98.6) Netherlands (96.5), located in the second, third, fourth and fifth positions. Further on the list are Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Sweden.

Canada and Germany rank 12th and 13th. The report shows, the advanced places in the rating were mainly taken by the developed countries of the West and Asia, such as France, Great Britain, Norway, Finland, Taiwan, China.

However, current studies covering almost half the world have bypassed Azerbaijan. The list does not contain the name of our country. Nevertheless, the rating raises interest from the point of view of comparison with the CIS neighbors. The fact is that Kazakhstan, which is still experiencing an equally difficult period of its economic development, devaluation of the national currency and the banking crisis, was able to improve its performance and rose from 47th to 32nd place. But Ukraine dropped from 59 positions to 60.

This year, Russia lost 2 more lines in the final list, having fallen from 44th to 46th place, having passed far ahead of Kazakhstan, Latvia and the Philippines. The result, fixed in 2017, is the lowest for Russia since 2012. Worst of all in the field of social welfare are things in Brazil, Mongolia.

The fact that "dynamically developing" Azerbaijan, "not having analogue" " was in the offside of this competition, says that in the country the situation is sad for all the IMD criteria. The authors rated the countries by such parameters as the degree of protection of the right to private property, the level of crime, property inequality, international trade, the quality of business management, efficiency and productivity of labor, fiscal policy, employment, citizens' incomes, scientific infrastructure. A total of 20 parameters, of which our country has not reach even minimum indices.

However, this is not the only fact of Azerbaijan's ignoring by prestigious rating organizations. The Global Pension Index-2017, compiled by the French financial corporation Natixis Global Asset Management, was published. Unlike the year before last, when Azerbaijan ranked 93rd in this rating among 150 countries of the world, now our country is completely in flight. Azerbaijan's pensioners for quality of life, access to financial services to ensure the safety of savings, income and access to medical services could not compete not only with Estonia (26th place), Lithuania (31st place), but even with India (43rd place), who turned out to be outside the rating.

According to the head of the Center for Assistance to Economic Initiatives Azer Mehdiyev, conducted studies of international experts and their ratings objectively illustrate the situation in Azerbaijan. The crisis that dealt a crushing blow to the country's economy and social sphere, leaving a significant part of the population in the category of the poor. The main challenges for the national economy were a reduction in the inflow of petrodollars, a shortage of funds in the budget, a paralysis of the banking system, the depletion of state reserves and risks to social stability. The devaluation of manat threw our retired people in financial position to the level of Moldovan pensioners. The average pension is about 120 dollars at the current rate. This is a very low figure in the world. Many pensioners are deprived of medical care, as treatment and medicines are expensive. It is difficult to argue with the fact that our pensioners live worse than the Indian ones, not to mention the Norwegian ones.

"An important qualitative indicator is the financing of the health system. State expenses for this sphere make up just 4% of GDP, although for a normal functioning of medicine the WHO has set a minimum limit of 6% of GDP. According to the WHO, Azerbaijan is at the very end of the list for spending on health, next to the Niger and Sudan. In terms of education expenditures (4.7% of GDP), Azerbaijan ranks 93rd in the world, behind, for example, Kazakhstan and Algeria. But the cost of defense, law enforcement, the maintenance of the state apparatus and various public relations measures consumed almost a third of the budget, double the level of 2010," the expert notes.

You can, of course, ignore these ratings, as did the journalists who received second and third apartments from President Ilham Aliyev in a new building in the suburbs of Baku. Is it correct? How useful are these studies? They allow you to look at the actual situation from the side. This is not the president's keynote speech at the Cabinet meetings, nor the statements of the government members about our happy future, wise economic policies, and the contented retirees.

Pragmatic analysts do not really believe the reports of our government, embellished statistics of the State Statistics Committee. They tell the truth about the realities in Azerbaijan. Often unpleasant for our authorities.