Baku, Azerbaijan, May 30
By Anvar Mammadov – Trend:
The surplus of the current account of Azerbaijan’s balance of payments amounted to $380 million as of January-March 2017, Elman Rustamov, head of the country’s central bank, told reporters in Baku May 30.
"After a two-year deficit as of January-March 2017, we see a surplus worth $380 million in the current account of the balance of payments," Rustamov said.
He said that the central bank expects that dynamic to continue during 2017.
"Taking into account the current oil prices and export-import flows of goods and services, we expect the surplus formation tendency to strengthen in the current account of the balance of payments," Rustamov added.
For comparison, the deficit of the current account of Azerbaijan's balance of payments amounted to $432.1 million as of January-March 2016.
The deficit of the current account of Azerbaijan's balance of payments totaled $1.36 billion in 2016.
According to the balance of payments, the current account surplus of the Azerbaijani oil and gas sector amounted to $4.4 billion in 2016, while it was $6.55 billion in 2015.
The surplus of the current account for the oil and gas sector covers the deficit of the account for the non-oil sector by 76.3 percent ($5.8 billion) in 2017, which decreased by 15 percent ($1.01 million) compared to 2016.
The financial account deficit declined by 69.4 percent to $2.8 billion for the year ($ 2.3 billion excluding dollarization).
According to the balance of payments analysis by sectors, foreign economic operations in the oil and gas sector had a positive balance, while those operations in the non-oil sector - negative balance during 2016 as in previous years.
The total volume of foreign trade turnover amounted to $22.2 billion in 2016, while the positive balance of the foreign trade balance - $4.2 billion.
Azerbaijan conducted trade operations with 186 countries as of January-March 2017. Thus, 14 percent of the trade turnover accounted for the CIS countries and 86 percent to other countries.
Azerbaijan's reserve assets decreased by $539 million in 2016 compared to $11.33 billion-decrease in 2015.