Baku, Azerbaijan, March 6
By Abbas Akhundov - Trend:
Fitch Ratings expects Azerbaijan's economic growth to reach 3.5-4 percent in 2014, Director in the sovereign analytical group specialising on ratings of European countries with developing economies, Charles Seville said at the third Azerbaijani Annual Conference in Baku on March 6.
"The effective management of oil revenues and economic diversification are the key areas," he said.
From this point of view, a decrease in the volume of transfers from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) to the state budget from 11.35 billion manat in 2013, to 9.337 billion manat in 2014, can be considered as a positive factor.
He also stressed a good situation with the ratio of the current transactions to the country's GDP.
"The level of external debt is not a disturbing factor for Azerbaijan," he added.
"Azerbaijan's economy is not as greatly affected by global trends as other developing markets," he added.
"The manat remains stable compared to the national currencies of other developing countries," he added. "The continued decrease in a dollar level in the Azerbaijani economy is the result of manat stability."
"Dollarization in Azerbaijan is higher than for example, in Russia or Kazakhstan, but its level continues to decline," he said.
He also stressed the low level of inflation in Azerbaijan.
"Inflation was low in the region," he said. "This is connected with a decrease in food prices on the world markets."
Translated by NH
Edited by SM