Press Review - 26 May 2018

The development of entrepreneurship in the country, the reasons for high prices, and the essence of launching large banknotes into circulation are the leading topics of today's press.

The newspaper Azerbaijan writes about the development of entrepreneurship in the country. In this regard, the Business Center hosted a conference where the Minister of Economy Shaheen Mustafayev spoke.

He said the development of the country in the future depends on entrepreneurship. Over the past 15 years, the economy has grown 3.2 times, the number of business entities has grown 4.3 times, the share of the private sector in GDP has grown by 84%, employment has exceeded 75%, and over 90 thousand enterprises have been created.

The Novoye Vremya newspaper writes that the Central Bank fixes price increases, but it does not know how to curb them. The average annual inflation in Azerbaijan was 13.9% in 2017. These are the data of the State Statistics Committee and the head of the Central Bank Elman Rustamov. However, the real percentage of inflation in the country is much higher. By the way, earlier E. Rustamov promised that in 2018 inflation would decrease to 6%. However, everything is exactly the opposite. The rise in prices cannot be stopped, and inflation expectations are very gloomy. Single-digit inflation is possible only if economic reforms are implemented by the new Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan. But if the current government also builds the economy with an eye on oil prices, then the price hike cannot be avoided, which means that galloping inflation will gain momentum.

The newspaper Echo writes about the launching of new large bills of 200 and 500 manat. Issue of 200-manat banknotes is an indirect acknowledgment that the national currency of Azerbaijan not only has lost value, but in the long term the manat rate will fall. In the 1990s, due to growing inflation and devaluation processes, the Azerbaijani government had to issue banknotes of 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 manat. In 1994, banknotes of 10,000 manat were introduced for circulation, and banknotes of 50,000 manat were introduced in 1996. This scenario is repeated again.