BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 23
By Chingiz Safarli - Trend:
According to the international ratings, the Azerbaijani army is among the 40 most powerful and efficient armies in the world, Trend reports on Dec. 23 referring to Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ali Asadov’s article published in ‘Azerbaijan’ newspaper.
Asadov stressed that one of the spheres of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev’s wise and far-sighted policy is to strengthen the country's defense capability.
“President Ilham Aliyev voiced the initiative of creating a defense and military-industrial complex in Azerbaijan that meets modern requirements,” the prime minister said.
Asadov said that the achievements in this sphere played an important role in providing the Azerbaijani army with weapons during the 44-day Second Karabakh War.
“Sustainable development of the military-industrial complex, which meets the main domestic needs and exports the products to more than 30 countries, has been achieved in Azerbaijan,” the prime minister said.
“If 0.9 billion manat ($0.5 billion) were allocated from the state budget for defense spending in 2003-2004, this figure reached 3.9 billion manat ($2.3 billion) in 2020,” Asadov said. “More than 4.5 billion manat ($2.6 billion) will be allocated from the budget-2022 for defense and national security.”