Media Review for February 20, 2020

Improving the social well-being of the population, the problem of unregistered buildings, rising inflation, and the possibility of devaluation are the topics of today's media.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes about improving the social well-being of citizens of the country. Between 1996 and 2002, GDP grew by 1.7%, investment in the economy - by 7.8%, nominal cash income of the population - three times, and the average salary and pension - 5 times.

The article recalls the adoption of the state program for 2008-2015 to reduce poverty, which was successfully implemented.

Over 16 years, industrial production grew 2.7 times, agriculture - 2 times, foreign trade - 16.4 times, exports - 7.6 times, including non-oil exports - 5.2 times.

The website Azadliqinfo.az writes about a possible devaluation. So, in January of this year, state budget revenues decreased by 13.7%.

In January 2019 the budget collected 2.1 billion manat, and in January of this year - 1.8 billion manat. Thus, fees decreased by 300 million manat.

Economists believe that the situation is not encouraging, and the prospects are not optimistic. According to the plan, an average of 2 billion manat should be paid to the state budget every month. However, the January fees are less than the indicated amount by about 200 million manat. This means that the collection plan was implemented with a deficit of 9%. If budget revenues do not grow, and the situation worsens, then another devaluation may become inevitable.

The website Modern.az writes about the situation with houses without state registration.

A special committee has been created on this issue, where documents on this category of houses are collected, a concept is prepared.

According to primary estimates, there are more than 600 thousand such houses in the country. Of these, 450 thousand are in Baku and in the vicinity of the capital, and a total of 70 thousand of them are located in areas where it is impossible to build housing.

The website Sfera.az writes about the reasons for the growth of inflation, discussing this issue with an expert. In January 2020, inflation reached 2.7%, and a large money supply also came into circulation due to an increase of up to 250 manat of the minimum wage and up to 200 manat of the minimum pension.

Monopoly, rising costs of entrepreneurs, as well as import prices, also affect inflation.