President Aliyev Happy with Economic Performance of I Half of 2015

President Ilham Aliyev in the traditional manner positively assessed the results of the first half of 2015.

On Sunday's cabinet meeting Aliyev voiced the data of the State Statistics Committee, which concluded that the economic growth in Azerbaijan was 5.7%, while non-oil sector - 9.2%. At the same time, industrial production increased by 4%. Agriculture grew by 7.3%.

Inflation rose by 3.5% and agriculture – by 7.3%. Statistics confirm that the incomes of the population rose by 6.2%, while the manat depreciated by 35% in February.

In the first half of the year there was invested 12.7 billion manats.

According to Aliyev, these results were achieved against a background of "unpleasant processes in different parts of the world." In particular, he pointed to the "permanent clashes in the Middle East" and "a deep economic and moral crisis in Europe."

As Turan notes, apparently all is not so bad for the current crisis times. The data of the first five months of the year shows that economic growth is directly related to the sharp decline in the deflator. In the beginning of the year the IMF gave pessimistic forecasts for economic growth in 2015: 0.6% real GDP growth and 3.5% growth in non-oil GDP. It would have been the brink of recession. However, after the visit of a review mission in June, the IMF raised its forecast for economic growth in Azerbaijan to 1.8%, including non-oil sector to 6.5%. The inflation rate in Azerbaijan in 2015, although projected on a two-digit level in the early year, is now estimated at 8.5%.

As you know, the budget forecasts for the current year were formed at an oil price of $ 90 per barrel. A pertinent question is why they kept them the same while in the neighboring oil-producing countries the forecast was immediately reduced to $ 50 per barrel as soon as it became clear that world oil prices went down. We can assume that the government proceeded from the fact that, as almost half the budget revenue is provided by transfers from the Oil Fund, the rest of the budget revenues will not be difficult to reach. Meanwhile, the actual income into the revenue part of Azerbaijan's state budget for the first five months of the year amounted to 6.42 billion manats, which is 19.9% ​​less than last year. Budget expenditures amounted to 7.33 billion manats, decreasing by 0.5%. We can assume that they will decline further. -0-