Ellada Khankishiyeva, director of Analytic Center of Trend
Ilham Aliyev's winning 15 October presidential election by landslide (88.73% of votes) means success of positive changes that took place over past years in economic and political life of the country.
Tasks of the Azerbaijani government for the coming five years:
- Ensuring Employment
Government's chief goal in this sphere is the providing every citizen with a job. Over 706,000 jobs were created since 2003 with 505,000 of them being permanent jobs. State Program on Development of Entrepreneurship in 2008 to 2015 will be implemented to continue measures in this field. The program will assists small and medium businesses as a source of new jobs. The employment of youth will also be laid a special emphasis.
-Oil Revenues
New oil strategy of the Azerbaijani government will be realized which aims at benefiting population from the natural wealth of Azerbaijan. The state program, based on the principles of accurate distribution of revenues between current and succeeding generations, on improving life standards of every family will be implemented due to oil revenues as well. Ensuring transparency of oil revenues in this state program will play a vital role. Currency reserves of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) established for more efficient use of oil revenues for succeeding generations, exceeded $10bln.
- Gas and power engineering
Today over 80% of population, especially densely-populated settlements in the regions have been supplied with gas. Measures have been carried out to further supply villages and settlements with gas. In the coming five years, gas infrastructure of all regions will be reconstructed, electric mains and sub-stations will be renewed and installations of gas and electricity meters will be completed to meet gas electricity demands of consumers.
- Reducing Poverty
State Program on Reducing Poverty and Sustainable Development of Azerbaijan in 2008 to 2015, which aims at providing Azerbaijani citizens with better life standards, will also be carried out. Measures will be taken further to create jobs, increase salaries, pensions and all kinds of benefits to the level of cost of living. Social care towards families with many children and disabled people will be increased. The youth will be granted long-term soft credits for housing. At present, the rate of poverty makes up 16%.
-Care towards refugees and internally displaced persons
The public funds targeted at the solution of social problems of refugees and internally displaced person will increase: they will be provided with jobs by creating small processing enterprises in the newly-found settlements; additional measures will be taken to provide temporary settled population with land plots. New apartments will be further constructed and new settlements will be further laid to better lives of refugees and IDPs. All refugee camps across the country were canceled due to the finance of the State Oil Fund and over 18,000 internally displaced people moved to 58 new settlements and were provided with housing. They were rendered with free of charge assistance to be engaged in agriculture.
- Youth development
Health and development of young generation is one of the key tasks of our society. State Program on Azerbaijani Youth for 2005-2009 aims at bettering education of the youth and brining them up in the spirit of patriotism. State Program on Education of Azerbaijani Youth Abroad in 2007-2015 was adopted to produce specialist with high skills conforming to the requirements of information society. Numerous Olympic complexes meeting international standards are built to develop material and technical basis of sports. At present, 14 sport complexes are operating with 23 being under construction.
- Education
Reforms in the sphere of health care and education will be continued in the coming five years. The efforts are made to encourage people to care about their health, to be engaged in physical training and sport. Thanks to expedient reforms carried out in the sphere of secondary education, the results of the school graduates in the entrance exams improved as compared to the previous years. The number of students, who scored over 600 points in entrance exams, went up from 1,100 to 1,582. In 2003 to 2005, state programs on construction of new schools, capital repairs of the existing schools and teaching them by means of up-to-date training equipment, were implemented. As many as 1,400 new schools were built and capital repairs were carried out in 300 schools.