Baku, Azerbaijan, July 21
By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:
As much as 47.8 percent of the total volume of investment portfolio of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) was concentrated in US dollars (around $16.14 billion) in H1 2016, as compared to $15.96 billion in Q1 2016, said the SOFAZ report.
The total volume of SOFAZ’s investment portfolio stood at $33.76 billion as of July 1, 2016, or 96.1 percent of the total volume of assets, according to the report.
Moreover, 34.5 percent of SOFAZ’s investment portfolio is concentrated in euros (10.5 billion euros), 4.7 percent - British pounds (1.19 billion pounds), 1.9 percent - Japanese yens, 1.5 percent - Russian rubles, 1.4 percent - Chinese yuans, 1.3 percent - in the South Korean wons, 1.2 percent - Turkish liras, 0.6 percent - Australian dollars, 1.3 percent - other currencies.
The remaining part of the portfolio (3.8 percent or around $1.28 billion) is in gold.
The assets of SOFAZ have increased by 4.6 percent as of July 1, 2016 and stood at $35.1 billion, as compared to $33.57 billion as of early 2016.
SOFAZ was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million.
Based on SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems.
The main goals of the State Oil Fund are accumulation of resources and placement of the Fund’s assets abroad in order to minimize the negative effect on the economy, prevention of "Dutch disease" to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations, and supporting current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan.
Official exchange rate on July 21 is 1.5693 AZN/USD.
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