Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 29 / Trend /
"Azerbaijan's successful development is a reality," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at a conference following the third year of implementing the "State Program of Socio-Economic Development of Regions of the Azerbaijani Republic in 2009 - 2013". The Azerbaijani population knows and sees this. The world community also receives full information on Azerbaijan's success. Our success is based on the thought-out policy, socio-political stability in the country and successful economic reforms."
The President said that Azerbaijan's modern period of development is very successful. "I would like to say that the development is based on our policy," he said. "The politics in social and economic sphere has one purpose in our country: to protect the interests of the Azerbaijani people, to strengthen our country and our positions in the region. This is our main direction."
Broad programs are being realized at the present stage to achieve rapid development of the country, he said. "Of course, the state program of social and economic development of regions adopted in 2004 is the most important and significant among them," he said. "The regions of our country began developing very rapidly following the adoption of the program."
"I am very pleased that about 600,000 new jobs have been created for a short period - that is, the shorter period of about four years," he said. "In total, about 760,000 new jobs were opened in 2004-2008. This is of particular importance to eliminate unemployment and to reduce poverty. Thus, the program adopted in 2004 gave an impetus to our entire economic development."
Of course, the most part of our economy is formed in the oil and gas sector, he said. "However, it is impossible to create many jobs in the oil and gas sector. Therefore, our main focus was made on the non-oil sector. The development of this sector was to be directed to diversify the economy and to eliminate unemployment. And this happened.
There are a lot of countries rich in oil in the world, he said. "There are countries producing and exporting much more oil and gas than we do. However, the economy does not rapidly develop in every country as opposed to our country. So, I would like to reiterate that our success is based on the well-thought economic policy and economic reforms. These reforms are estimated by the international community. The world leading economic organizations support and evaluate the current processes in Azerbaijan and sometimes observe them with delight. The biggest rating agencies reduce the credit ratings of the developed countries and increase Azerbaijan's credit ratings. The leading international financial institutions highly appreciate the reforms in Azerbaijan in the crisis years. And this is also very important. Of course, this is the most important issue for us to realize our plans, to ensure our economic development, prosperous lives of people. But when we see that influential international organizations emphasize our success, of course, this pleases us greatly."
2011 was also successful for the development of the country, he said. "One of the features of 2011 was the rapid growth of Azerbaijan's non-oil sector," he said. "If the common economic development amounted to about 1 percent, maybe less, then our non-oil economy increased by more than 10 percent."
"Here is the result of the programs we have adopted," he said. "Our goal is to develop non-oil sector, the non-oil industry. The results of the first month of the year testify to this. The non-oil industry increased by more than 10 percent. The powerful process of industrialization is underway. I spoke on this issue several years ago. I said that the industrialization process in Azerbaijan must be rapidly held. And we see it. Azerbaijan will continue making efforts for comprehensive development of the country, he said. "We have a well thought-out program, policy," he said. The second State Program will be implemented until 2013. I am sure that the program adopted in 2009 will be over-fulfilled. Thus, the major infrastructure issues in our country must be and will be resolved by the end of 2013. Large infrastructure projects, which are under implementation or completion, create this assurance. Of course, I think that we must work very actively for the next two years to implement the State Program ahead of the schedule and in a large scale, to ensure the successful development of the country."
