Baku, Azerbaijan, March 30
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
The current account deficit of Azerbaijan's balance of payments stood at $222.5 million in 2015, according to the balance of payments made public by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan.
For comparison: in 2014 the current account surplus of Azerbaijan's balance of payments amounted to $10.42 billion.
The current account surplus of Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector amounted to $6.55 billion during the reporting period, said the document.
Additionally, the current account surplus of the country's oil and gas sector fully covers the deficit of the non-oil sector totaling $6.77 billion.
The balance of payments deficit stood at $11.33 billion in 2015, while it had a surplus totaling $4.19 billion in 2014. At the same time, the current account surplus of the country's oil and gas sector balance of payments amounted to $10.1 billion.
During the calculation of the balance of payments, the average price of oil was $48 per barrel, while a year earlier it was at the level of $95 per barrel.
The analysis of the balance of payments in various sectors shows that like in previous years, the foreign economic operations in the oil and gas sector had a positive balance, while those in the non-oil sector had a negative balance in 2015.
The total volume of the foreign trade turnover stood at $25.4 billion in 2015, while the surplus of the foreign trade balance stood at $5.8 billion.
Azerbaijan maintained trade relations with 172 countries during the reporting period. While 10.5 percent of trade turnover accounted for the CIS countries, the other 89.5 percent applied to foreign countries.
Azerbaijan was involved in intensive trade with Turkey, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, US, Japan, France, Israel and China. Some 67.1 percent of export-import operations in Azerbaijan accounted for these countries.