Media Review September 5, 2019

TAP as the final stage of the Southern Gas Corridor, the high cost of the housing rental market, important conditions for accelerating reforms, and high prices for Internet media are today's media topics.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes about the completion of the construction of the last segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - the TAP gas pipeline; gas will go through it to Europe next year. The previous segment of SGC - TANAP was put into operation on May 29, 2018.

The total length of the SGC is 3,500 km. TAP will pass through the territory of Greece, Albania and Italy. Its length is 878 km. The investment in this project is 4.5 billion euros, and the annual throughput will be 10 billion cubic meters.

The website Modern.az writes about the situation in the housing rental market, discussing it with expert Rashad Aliyev. After two months of stagnation, the expert notes, a revival has begun in this market. Apartments earlier offered at 200-300 manat, now jumped to 400-500 manat. As always, this is due to the arrival of students.

Another factor affecting this market is the demolition of houses. As for the monopoly, the expert believes that it simply cannot be on the rental market, since it is a free market and its prices change in accordance with the general real estate prices.

The Vergiler.az website publishes commentary by deputy Ali Masimli in connection with the report of the rating agency Moody"s Investors Service regarding Azerbaijan. The MP believes that systemic economic reforms will become an impetus for sustainable development and competitiveness of the non-oil sector. This will make it possible to produce most of the imported products in Azerbaijan, as well as increase the country's export potential by 2-3 times. According to the deputy, there is a need to fight against monopolism, corruption and so on in connection with tax reforms.

The Yeni Musavat newspaper discusses why the Internet is expensive in Azerbaijan. Expert Gunduz Osmanli compares Internet prices in Azerbaijan and CIS countries.

In Azerbaijan, 65% of the Internet market is controlled by structures subordinate to the Ministry of Communications - Baktelecom, Aztelekom, Azeurotel, AzDataCom, and Azercell. Their internet is quite expensive. If you can buy 5-6 mb / s from Aztelekom or Baktelecom for 30 manat, then you can buy 200 mb / s in Kazakhstan for the same price, 100 mb / s in Ukraine for 8 manat, 50 mb / s for 30 AZN in Georgia, and 150-500 mb / s for 15-20 AZN in Russia. The expert believes that providers should give instructions on reducing the cost of the Internet by 3-4 times. -0-----