BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept. 15
Trend:
Of course, our oil fields will eventually be depleted, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said when attending the inauguration ceremony of a Vocational Education Center under the Sumgayit Chemical Industry Park Limited Liability Company, Trend reports.
“True, we will start operating new oil and gas fields in the near future and will try to keep the level of production stable. But a natural decline in the Azeri, Chirag, and Guneshli fields, our main sources of income, is inevitable. We must fill this gap precisely at the expense of the non-oil sector. To maintain the balance of payments at a positive level, we need enterprises that produce high-quality export products, of course, and bring in foreign currency. The positive balance of payments today is maintained mainly due to the oil and gas factor. However, we must try, leaving aside this factor, to always have a positive balance in export-import operations. Therefore, it is imperative to create export-oriented manufacturing industries capable of replacing imports. A cigarette factory has started functioning here and our statistics already show how much the dependence on imports has decreased,” the head of state said.