Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 16 / Trend I.Khalilova /
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) reported today that the current account surplus of balance payments was $7.961 billion in the first half of this year compared to $4.481 billion during the same period in 2009. The volume of surplus increased by 1.8 times.
As in previous years, black-ink foreign trade surplus was seen during foreign economic operations in the oil and gas sector, and red ink surplus in the non-oil sector. The current account surplus of the oil and gas sector is $10.1 billion, which fully covered the current $2.1-billion account deficit of the non-oil sector, the CBA told Trend.
Income from oil and gas is formed mainly thanks to oil and natural gas exports, and the foreign capital engaged in this sector. Sector payments are carried out as a result of profits and investments repatriation, and equipment and services imports. In the first half of 2010, the red surplus in the oil and gas sector reached $9.9 billion.
The total foreign trade turnover amounted to $16.1 billion, with the black-ink foreign trade surplus reaching $10.2 billion in January-March 2010. In addition, goods worth $2.956 billion were imported and export operations amounted to $13.192 billion.
During the reporting period, trade relations were established with 130 countries. Roughly 12.3 percent of the turnover fell to transactions with CIS countries and 87.7 percent fell to other foreign countries. Intensive trade relations were observed with Italy, the United States, France, Israel, Turkey, Russia, India, Croatia and Ukraine. Seventy-two percent of the country's export and import operations fell to these countries.