Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17
By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:
As much as 69.8 percent of the investment portfolio of Azerbaijan’s State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) was invested in financial instruments for a period of up to five years in January-September 2016, said a SOFAZ report.
Total volume of SOFAZ’s investment portfolio stood at $33.95 billion as of Oct. 1, 2016, or 94.8 percent of the total volume of assets, according to the report.
This is while 36.1 percent of SOFAZ investment portfolio was placed for a period of up to one year, 19.2 percent – from one to three years, 14.5 percent – from three to five years, 9.5 percent – for more than five years, and 20.7 percent of the funds were invested in real estate, stocks and gold.
As much as 79.3 percent of the investment portfolio has been invested in bonds and money market instruments and 13.3 percent of these funds accounted for securities with "ААА" rate, 27 percent - "AA" rate, 35 percent - "A" rate, 18.3 percent - "BBB" rate, 6.4 percent - "BB" rate.
As of now, 3.8 percent of SOFAZ’s investment portfolio has been invested in gold, 5.3 percent – in real estate, 11.6 percent – in stocks.
The geography of SOFAZ’s assets allocation is as follows: 41.6 percent - European countries, 24.1 percent - North America, 3.9 percent - Australia, 27.3 percent - Asia and the Pacific, 0.4 percent – Middle East, 0.1 percent – South America, 2.6 percent – international financial institutions.
The assets of SOFAZ have increased by 6.7 percent as of Oct. 1, 2016 and stood at $35.82 billion as compared to $33.57 billion in 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.
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