Press Review 09/22/2016

Then leadership qualities of Ilham Aliyev, the results of the "contract of the century", the fate of SOCAR bonds, and the state of the economy are the leading topics of today's press.

The official newspaper Azerbaijan published an article on the leadership qualities of President Ilham Aliyev. The author notes that at all times leaders faced two main requirements - courage and determination.

The result of these and other qualities Ilham Aliyev is that the country’s authority is growing and it is respected in the world. An example of this is the last meeting with the MEPs, where Aliyev showed courage and determination, the author believes.

A message was directed to foreign states and international bodies that the conditions in the bilateral relations are dictated only by official Baku and there are no exceptions for anybody.

The site of the newspaper Azadlig, www.azadliq.info, analyzes the “contract of the century” signed back in 1994 and its results. During this period, the republic has earned 150 billion dollars, but today the state foreign debt is 25 billion dollars. All economic indicators are falling rapidly, 2.5 million people have loan debts, there is a banking crisis, and the country is included in the list of non-free states.

It turns out that oil revenues have led not to progress, but vice versa. This is because a group of people seized all the wealth of the country, turning it into their property.

Echo published an article entitled Popularity of SOCAR Bonds Still under Question. Bonds of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) were brought to sale yesterday. They will be available until 10 October.

The yield on bonds with a nominal value of 1,000 dollars each will be 5% per annum. The total amount of the bonds is 100 million dollars. The interest will be paid every three months. Income tax will not be charged. The SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said earlier that during the initial public offering (subscription) only Azerbaijani citizens and local companies would be able to buy the bonds. According to him, SOCAR ensures the liquidity of the bonds, while investors may at any time exchange them for cash. The SOCAR expenses exceed the income, so they have to resort to the sale of bonds, although they waste money on social projects that have nothing to do with their direct activities. And it is worth noting that the bonds are sold not in the local currency, but in US dollars.

Bizim Yol writes the export and import figures are constantly falling. The article referring to the customs statistics says that over 8 months of 2015 products were exported in the amount of 9,190,564,160 dollars. For the same period this year the index was 5,790,280,970 dollars. The volume of exports decreased 37%.

For 8 months of this year the country imported goods in the amount of 5,539,988,100 dollars. This figure was 5,907,904,440 dollars in the same period last year. The difference was 6.3%.