Azerbaijan, Baku, July 4 / Trend A. Akhundov /
The Azerbaijani Finance Ministry expects to achieve a total volume of insurance premiums worth 300 million manat in the market by late 2012, head of the State Insurance Supervision Service at the Azerbaijani Ministry of Finance Namig Khalilov told media today.
"In this case, the insurance premiums per capita will exceed 30 manat or $40, which is a good index," Khalilov said.
He said that the growth of the insurance market exceeds the growth rate of the country's economy.
"The growth of the insurance market surpasses the growth of the non-oil sector of the economy in 2011 and 2012," he said. "We think that these are good figures. It is necessary to improve the quality of insurance services."
The total volume of premiums of 28 insurance companies operating in the country as of January 1, 2012, amounted to 212.98 million manat as of 2011 (increased by 36.89 per cent per year), and payments for the reporting period were carried out to the sum of 61.57 million manat (an increase of 14.38 per cent).
As of the first five months of 2012, insurance fees amounted to 144.703 million manat (increased by 67.38 per cent per year) and payments for the reporting period were carried out to the amount of 32.945 million manat (increased by 48.43 per cent).
In 2011, Azerbaijan's GDP grew by 0.1 per cent and amounted to 50.1 billion manat in current prices. Azerbaijan's GDP growth in 2011 was fully ensured through the non-oil sector which is the result of economic diversification and implementation of the policy to minimise the dependence on the oil sector.
The non-oil sector has increased by 9.4 per cent to 48.3 per cent of GDP in 2011.
As of January-May 2012, the GDP increased by 0.7 per cent, while the non-oil sector by 10.5 per cent to 44.4 per cent of GDP.
The official exchange rate is 0.7856 AZN/USD on July 4.