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Azerbaijan should reduce oil dependence: Azerbaijani President

Business Materials 13 February 2009 11:18 (UTC +04:00)
Azerbaijan should reduce oil dependence: Azerbaijani President

(Itar-Tass) - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said his country should work to reduce the dependence on oil reserves to the minimum.

"We shall pay attention to encouraging competitive production in order to minimize the dependence on oil output and prices in future," he told Tass in an interview.

"Oil gives wealth, it brings in capital, but it does not create jobs just by itself," the president said.

Aliyev said it is only natural that Azerbaijan "paid much attention to efficient management of oil and gas

resources, to the diversification of supply routes and promoting energy security.

"We have achieved everything we have planned, and one of the priority tasks was to decrease dependence on oil. I believe we have achieved major success in that, as the non-oil sector in Azerbaijan was developing at the same pace as the oil sector," he said.

"In the past five years Azerbaijan created 766 thousand new jobs, of which 550 thousand are permanent jobs. A strong infrastructure has been created in all the regions. The poverty level in Azerbaijan decreased from 49 to 13 percent in five years. All that confirms the efficiency of economic reforms and social programs in our country," Aliyev said.

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