Media Review September 20, 2019

The 25th anniversary of the signing of the "contract of the century", the official registration of millionaires and billionaires in Azerbaijan, and the reasons for the growth of early marriages are the topics of today's media.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes about the 25th "contract of the century", signed on September 20, 1994 between SOCAR and 11 leading oil companies to develop the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field.

This contract was important not only for Azerbaijan, but also for the countries of the West, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, as it opened the way for other global projects in the region.

From November 1997 to the end of last year, 3.5 billion barrels of oil were produced from the ACG field, and for the first half of this year - 542 400 barrels.

The website Modern.az discusses the topic of millionaires and billionaires of Azerbaijan with MP Vahid Ahmadov. Names of those in the country are not called. This is largely due to the fact that very rich people are mainly oligarch officials and MPs.

They do not declare their income in order not to pay taxes, and the MPs are not interested in adopting such laws. Although a law was passed in 2005 on decreeing the income of officials, the President even signed it, but the Cabinet of Ministers has not yet prepared normative documents.

Lack of declarations creates many problems. According to MP Ahmedov, the shadow economy plays an important role in Azerbaijan. From 1991 to 2018, the average indicator of the shadow economy in Azerbaijan was 49.58%.

The newspaper Yeni Musavat writes about the increase in the number of early marriages in the country, especially in the lowland zone. Experts note that traditionally, early marriages were mostly in the southern zone of the country. However, today the number of early marriages in the southern region is not so high. At the same time, over the past 10-15 years, in the remote villages of the southern zone there was not a single girl who received higher education.

Early marriages were also recorded in the villages of Baku. As for the reasons, they are economic, moral and psychological.