Azerbaijan, Baku, April 12, (Trend, A. Akhundov)
The present level of state investments in the Azerbaijani economy will need to be maintained over theseveral next years, Deputy Finance Minister Azer Bayramov told reporters on Tuesday.
"At the same time, a sharp increase in state investments would be wrong," he noted.
Investments in the economy are expected to reach 11.4 billion manat this year, an increase of 17 percent against 2010.
Capital investments in the economy will total 37 billion manat over the next three years.
In 2011, foreign investments in Azerbaijan are likely to reach 4 billion manat, and to grow by around 10.6 percent over the next three years up to 16 billion manat.
This year, state investments and non-state investments are expected to be equivalent to 5.9 billion manat and 5.5 billion manat, correspondingly. The investments in the oil and non-oil sectors are forecast at 4 billion manat and 7.4 billion manat, respectively.
The spending of oil export revenues is expected to remain high in 2011, according to Bayramov. This will be connected with high infrastructure-related expenditures that still cannot be given up as no development seems possible on the basis of obsolete, out-of-date infrastructure, he said.
"As a matter of fact, Azerbaijan goes the way of Norway, which modernized its infrastructure over 10 years of intensely spending oil revenues and then strictly restrained such expenditures. The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan, despite being established 10 years ago, has been investing actively for less than 7 years," he said.
According to him, covering the current state budget expenditures at the expense of non-oil revenues is a fundamental, difficult task.
"This is a rather ambitious task for that simple reason that we have very strongly growing infrastructural projects, which will require current expenditures tomorrow. Therefore, I think achieving this goal is a task of the utmost priority," Bayramov said.
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