BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 24
By Elchin Mehdiyev – Trend:
Azerbaijan hasn't evaded the COVID-19 pandemic, and to prevent this disease from spreading, the country's leadership started to take timely preventive measures, Azerbaijan's Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy Chairman, Executive Secretary of the New Azerbaijan ruling party (YAP) Ali Ahmadov said during "Economy for people" the international inter-party forum of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held via videoconference, Trend reports.
According to him, since the beginning of the pandemic, Azerbaijan's strategy has been to responsibly and effectively implement all the main principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) and apply the positive experience gained in the fight against the pandemic both in the past and in the present period.
"Experience has proven and continues to prove the wisdom of this approach to the coronavirus pandemic in Azerbaijan. Timely sanitary and epidemiological measures have significantly reduced the rate of transmission of coronavirus," he said.
Ahmadov noted that as in all countries, the pandemic is accompanied by certain socio-economic consequences in Azerbaijan.
"Against the background of a drop in GDP by 10 percent or more in a number of economically developed countries, we can say that Azerbaijan has one of the most optimistic scenarios in this context. However, this is not a reason to reduce attention to the fight against the economic and social consequences of the coronavirus," he said.
"The model of the Azerbaijani government's actions in this area largely coincides with the activities of many governments. This model, firstly, provides support to the population, in particular its low-income part, secondly, huge support to small and medium-sized businesses, and thirdly, payment of wages to citizens who lost their income as a result of the introduction of serious quarantine restrictions," Ahmadov stressed.