Azerbaijan, Baku, 19 November / Trend corr. I.Alizade/ Azerbaijani Parliament believes fall in oil prices on the world market will not negatively affect country's budget for 2009.
"Fall in oil prices on the world market will affect profits of any country importing or exporting oil. But the budget of Azerbaijan has been formed and balanced so that its main part is not very contingent on oil prices," Vice-Speaker of the Azerbaijani Parliament Valeh Alaskarov said to Trend on 19 November.
According to Alaskarov, the revenues of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) depend on oil prices. "But the budget has been formed so that it is little contingent on those revenues. Azerbaijani financial and banking systems and other fields practice such a conservative system that the global crisis does not seriously affect us. We are always criticized because we use the experience of Europe and the United States. Absence of global crisis's impact on Azerbaijan is a result of the conservative economic policy practiced in the financial and banking systems," said Alaskarov.
"Any country would make use of that. There are such countries in which 70-90% of budget revenues are provided by oil. In Azerbaijan, the figure is much lower. Oil revenues are one of the sources of the Azerbaijani budget. And we should make use of that," he said.
"Future generations need roads, power stations, water supply, bridges, hospitals, schools and sports centres. We use oil revenues to provide all that," he said.
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