Press Review 04/20/2017

Prospects of Baku International Sea Commercial Port in Alat, unfinished new buildings, and persecution of protesters of the National Council April 8 rally are the leading topics of today's press.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes that the biggest international trade port in the Caspian Sea is in Alat. After putting it into operation, the port will be able to transport millions of tons of cargo from East to West and from North to South. The volume of cargo transportation of the port will be 25 million tons of cargo and 1 million containers.

Echo has published an article on the state of housing construction in Azerbaijan. Unfinished buildings spoil the appearance of the capital. To solve the problem, it is necessary to create a register of unfinished multi-storey houses. About 20 multi-storey houses are still unfinished. We need an electronic portal with information about construction companies. It would be even better for ordinary citizens and supervisory bodies to observe the construction online.

Novoye Vremya has published an article entitled When Will the Price Increase ‘Disturb’ Officials? In March, consumer prices and service tariffs rose by 1.6% compared to February. Prices for foodstuffs increased by 3.1%, non-food products - by 0.6%, and paid services - by 0.5% in this period.

The stably low rate of the manat does not contribute to lower prices, but on the contrary they grow.

The Musavat website writes that the participants of the National Council rally on April 8 are being persecuted. During the rally, police and special services took photos and videos of the protesters. Now, the identity of the participants is being clarified and they will be punished: students will be expelled from universities, small business owners will be simply confiscated their businesses, employees of state-budget organizations will be fired, etc. These measures should play the role of intimidation, so that from now on there would not be any people wishing to hold a rally.