BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Samir Ali - Trend:
Socio-economic indicators of Azerbaijan for the first half of 2020 are already known and should be analyzed, Head of Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, Industry and Entrepreneurship, MP Tahir Mirkishili told Trend.
According to Mirkishili, during the crisis, qualitative changes are important instead of quantitative ones.
“The decrease in Azerbaijan’s economic indicators in the current crisis period isn’t surprising. According to statistics, in the first half of 2020, the country’s GDP decreased by 2.7 percent, non-oil GDP - by 2.5 percent, allocations for fixed assets - by 2.7 percent, cargo transportation - by 14.1 percent, passenger transportation - by 28.7 percent, bank deposits of the population - by 11.2 percent, and foreign trade turnover - by 30 percent,” he said. “Instead, the agricultural production increased by 2.2 percent, non-oil industry - by 11.2 percent, information and communication services - by 4.4 percent, budget revenues - by 15.5 percent, nominal income - by 0.6 percent population, and loan deposits – 11.9 percent.”
“As for the qualitative indicators, over the past 5 months, the volume of trade turnover on electronic invoices has grown by 6.8 percent. Given that this growth took place amid a 2.5 percent decrease in GDP, the dynamics of the process is seen more clearly. Despite the decrease in retail turnover by 1.7 percent, the official turnover growth by 15.3 percent should be considered one of the qualitative indicators," the MP said.
Mirkishili noted that as of June 1, the growth of the wage fund in Azerbaijan was by 25 percent, which is also one of the qualitative indicators in terms of improving the people’s social welfare.
"The increase in business loans by 1.8 percent, and growth in mortgage loans by 3.2 percent are also important indicators in terms of supporting economic activity. The fact that more than 60 percent of loans accounts for business loans is one of the important factors that will ensure further economic growth. "
He added that the growth of non-cash transactions in the country carried out by payment cards by 37 percent, increase of e-commerce by 53 percent, and surge of internet banking by 84 percent, compared to the same period of last year, are also important quality indicators.