Azerbaijan, Baku, 15 April /corr. Trend I. Khalilova/ The Ministry of Economic Development of Azerbaijan has worked out state program for 2009- 13 in order to continue measures on social and economic development of Azerbaijani regions. On 15 April, the Working Group held its first meeting to discuss the draft of state program.
The minister of economic development Heydar Babayev said during the meeting that unlike the previous program, the problems of every village will be studied separately in the new program. It will be developed on the basis of data acquired from those villages.
"The inter-regional relations are of great importance for us, and as we have already stepped into such stage of development we can take complex measures," Babayev said.
According to the minister, water-supply, electricity supply, food security, health, education and reconstruction of highways are priority projects.
The Minister appealed heads of city administration to make their proposals to the working group. It was decided during the meeting to allocate 20 days for the administrative bodies to get familiar with the program and 1 month for the working group to sum up all comments and proposals on the state program.
The minister expressed his concern over the problems of transportation of agricultural products from one region to another within the country. Especially, the products produced by poultry farmers are not allowed to be transported from one region to another.
He also expressed his concern over the results of analysis on remaining part of the grain which was carried out within food security measures. The analysis showed that the real indicators do not coincide with the estimations because of the wrong statistical data from the regions.
About 98% of the current State Program on Social and Economic Development of Regions has been realized. Some 15 additional decrees have been signed to strengthen social and economic development of the regions during its realization. It has also reduced the poverty in Azerbaijan up to 16%, Babayev said. Some 668,000 jobs have been created, 480,000 of which accounts for permanent jobs.
Samir Valiyev, the head of the Administration of Ministry of Economic Development, has been appointed as the head of the working group and Niyazi Safarov, the deputy economic development minister, has been appointed as the chairman of the commission.
The correspondent can be contacted at: [email protected]