Media Review June 14, 2019

Achievements in the field of education, possible risks for the activities of EU companies in Azerbaijan, and high interests of bank loans are the topics of today's media.

The newspaper Azerbaijan published an article by Education Minister Jeyhun Bayramov about the success of education in the country. Compared to 2013, expenditures from the state budget for education increased by 60%, and in 2019 they reached 2.3 billion manat.

Compared to 2013, spending on education has increased 9 times. Over the past 5 years, over 600 schools have been built.

Over the past year, the law "On Vocational Education" was passed, and a package of amendments to the Law "On Education" was submitted to Parliament.

The Minister also claims that the level of applicants who have scored high points has increased.

The Minister expressed confidence that Azerbaijan has become one of the advanced countries in terms of the quality of education and its competitiveness.

The website Yeni Sabah.az writes about the customs and tax system, calling it a chronic disease of the country. The expert Natig Jafarli talks about the risks for businesses in EU countries.

According to the survey, 68% of the respondents believe that the country is developing in an uncertain direction, 57% of the respondents consider corruption as a risk, 53% - the lack of specialized personnel, and 46% indicated inflation as a risk.

According to another survey, 17% called the lack of transparency in the tax system a risk, 16% indicated this in the customs, and 13% said the educational system did not meet the requirements.

The newspaper Yeni Musavat continues to write about absurdly high interest rates for loans in banks. A difficult situation exists with bank lending. In comparison with 2015, the loan portfolio decreased from 25 billion manat to 13 billion manat. That is, the reduction is 47-48%. In this situation, one of the problems is the high interest of loans.