Azerbaijan, Baku, 20 May / Trend E. Aliyev /
The government of Azerbaijan, the Central Bank and international institutions say economic growth is expected to continue in Azerbaijan in the short term, according to a public statement of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) on monetary policy in the first quarter of 2013.
According to the latest economic review of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, economic growth will continue in Azerbaijan in 2013 at 4.1 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.
The results of the real sector monitoring conducted by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan show that expectations for economic activity are optimistic. According to the monitoring results, the indices of demand for services and expectations of sales in trade tend to increase. Positive expectations are observed in the food industry, production of building materials and weaving, in the sale of furniture and household electrical equipment.
According to the latest report of the International Monetary Fund in 2013, the average annual inflation rate in Azerbaijan is projected at 3.4 per cent, or 3.4 percentage points lower than in the CIS countries.
'According to the results of the monitoring of the real sector, there is no significant growth in the expectations on prices in the economy. During the first quarter of this year, there was a neutral expectation on prices in the construction and industrial sectors as well as in the service sector. A downward trend was recorded in the trade sector in expectations on prices in the next three months', the report said.
The official exchange rate on May 20 is 0.7847 AZN / USD.