BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 4. President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on amendments to the decrees of the President of Azerbaijan dated December 30, 2022, No. 3702 "Framework for updating the Public Debt Management Strategy in the Republic of Azerbaijan for medium and long-term periods from 2022 through 2025”, Trend reports.
According to the decree, in order to ensure the sustainability of public debt both in the medium and long term, taking into account the needs of the country's economy, until the end of 2025, it is planned to maintain the ratio of public debt (direct domestic and direct external public debt) to GDP at a level below 30 percent of GDP. This requirement has been below 20 percent so far.
In addition, according to the decree, it is stipulated that the ratio of external debt (direct external public debt) to GDP by the end of 2025 should not exceed $10 billion. This requirement was 15 percent (until the end of 2025) before that.
The priority is also to ensure that by the end of 2025 the external public debt does not exceed $10 billion. In order to accelerate the pace of socio-economic development of the country, foreign debt in the amount of up to $5 billion can be attracted to finance investment projects in priority directions, in addition to the return of external public debt.
The indicator of the ratio of this debt to GDP, which is the upper limit of the external public debt, is replaced by the indicator of the upper limit of the external public debt in nominal terms.
The external public debt will amount to $7.1 billion, or 10.7 percent of GDP by the end of 2025. In addition, since along with the repayment of the existing external public debt, external debt can be attracted to finance investment projects in priority sectors in order to accelerate the pace of socio-economic development of the country, these indicators may change.
Moreover, the external public debt will amount to $7.1 billion, or 10.7 percent of GDP by the end of 2025. In this case, the ratio of external public debt to GDP would be maintained at a level below 15 percent by the end of 2025.
It was planned to achieve the goal of reducing the ratio of external public debt to GDP below 10 percent under the next strategy, covering the period from 2025 through 2030.