Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept.26
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) retained its GDP growth forecast on Azerbaijan in 2014 and 2015 without any changes, the updated report of Asian Development Outlook 2014 said.
As in the previous report [released in April], the bank expects that the rate of GDP growth will amount to 5 percent in 2014, and 4.8 percent in 2015.
The ADB left forecasts for GDP growth in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan on the same level, according to the report.
"Although the growth rate of the economy of Azerbaijan in the first half of 2014 declined by less than a half of the expected forecast, the projected growth in the areas of oil production, construction, services and agriculture in the second half of this year will back up the previous forecast of growth," the report said.
"During the first half of 2014, Azerbaijan's GDP grew by 2.1 percent," said the report. "Slower growth is associated with the decrease of 3.9 percent in the oil sector, which accounts for half of GDP produced in the country. The growth rate of the non-oil sector of the economy also fell from 10.9 percent in January-June last year to 7 percent in the first half of 2014."
The bank, which listed Azerbaijan under Central Asia, lowered the forecast of development from 6.5 to 5.6 percent in 2014, and from 6.5 to 5.9 percent in 2015.
The bank's analysts associate this reduction with the expectation of lower GDP growth in 5 of the 8 countries in the region - Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
ADB also kept the inflation forecast in Azerbaijan for 2014 and 2015 unchanged - at the level of 4 and 3.5 percent, respectively. The bank improved its inflation forecast for Central Asia - from 9 percent to 7.6 percent in 2014 and from 7.4 percent to 7 percent in 2015.
In addition, the bank also kept the forecast on current transactions account surplus to GDP of Azerbaijan at the same level of 16 percent in 2014 and 15 percent in 2015.
ADB was established in 1966 and has 67 members. The bank's headquarters is located in the capital of the Philippines, Manila. Azerbaijan joined ADB on December 22, 1999. The country's share in the bank's capital is 0.5 percent.
ADB's leading shareholders are Japan and the United States (31.2 percent of the total share capital), India and China (12.8 percent), Australia, South Korea and Canada (16 percent) and so on.