Press Review 11.11. 2017

The development of the country's oil industry, increasing the population's spending on food, and strangeness in importing oil are the leading topics of today's press.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes about the development of the country's oil industry, calling it a history of success. The author recalls the two- billionth ton of oil produced in Azerbaijan on these days. The article also talks about the "Contract of the Century" and about other major oil projects.

The newspaper Echo published an article titled Average Families in Azerbaijan Spend About 60% of Income on Food. According to official data, Azerbaijani citizens spend more than 50% of their income on food, while in prosperous countries this figure is not more than 15% of total costs, and the people can spend the rest on clothing, education and entertainment. More and more citizens are trying to cut spending on food, switching to affordable food products. In general, since the beginning of the national currency"s depreciation, the consumer demand has been more focused on cheap goods. Consumption of potatoes, pasta, and cereals has increased significantly. The purchasing power of the population for dairy products has decreased. Earlier in the autumn-winter period, the demand for meat increased sharply, but now everything has changed. Counters are filled up with meat, but this is not out of abundance. Purchasing demand for meat has declined. The population purchases more chicken and even fish, which has noticeably fallen in price.

The Novoye Vremya newspaper published an article titled Oil Imports Are Also Growing. The share of oil supply in our country is also dropping; in 2015 we imported various oil products worth $ 144 million, but by the end of 2016 this indicator increased to $ 267 million. One of the factors contributing to the growth of imports of oil products in 2016 was the import of crude oil from Kazakhstan and Russia. Usually Azerbaijan acts as a transit country for Kazakh oil. Why it became necessary to import Kazakhstani oil this time is a little incomprehensible. Moreover, it is not clear why we needed Russian oil. The author calls such operations on oil import to Azerbaijan dubious. -0--