Press review September 6, 2017

The development of the agricultural sector in the country, ways to attract foreign investors, reducing dependence on imports are the leading topics of today's press. The newspaper "Azerbaijan" writes about the new stage of the revival in agriculture, citing the speech of President Ilham Aliyev at the nationwide meeting in Lankaran on September 3. The head of state asserts that in 2017 Azerbaijan continues successful development dynamics. The talk is about the development of agriculture and non-oil area in general, as well as the brand "Made in Azerbaijan".

The newspaper "Echo" published an article titled "How to restore investor confidence in Azerbaijan?" In addition to improving the macroeconomic situation, among the measures necessary for Azerbaijan, a system of privileges for foreign investors in problem regions and sectors of our country should be created. A lot of international companies left Azerbaijan, what affected the reduction of investments. Currently, the Azerbaijani government is trying to restore the location of potential investors and improve the business climate in the country. Work in this direction is carried out both inside the country and abroad through trade representations of Azerbaijan. It can not be said that the Azerbaijani market is not at all interested in foreign investors. On the contrary, many of them express interest. But over the past two years, there have been significant changes in the country, which could not but affect the outflow of investment, such as the devaluation of the national currency, after which the domestic market was shaken, medium and large companies began to leave our country. Naturally, this fact of many potential investors was alarmed. It's risky to run an expensive project when there is no confidence in the security of the market. Fortunately, the situation is normal.

The newspaper Novoye Vremya published an article entitled "Livestock production is becoming unprofitable." Despite official statements about economic growth and sustainable development of its non-oil sector, in particular, the agro industry, the statistics of food imports is not encouraging. Only in the last three years, the import of food in monetary terms increased by 24%. But most importantly, the expansion of cotton cultivated areas due to natural meadows and pastures put local cattlemen in a desperate position. Due to the reduction in the fodder base, domestic production of meat and milk is rapidly falling, giving way to overseas products. Consumer prices are growing. Despite the impressive increase in imports, official sources say that in the first half of the year, livestock production increased by 2.6%. In January-June, the republic produced 237.8 thousand tons of meat (2.9% growth), 1 million 3.5 thousand tons of milk (an increase of 0.8%), 879.4 million eggs by 6.7%), according to the State Statistics Committee.