Azerbaijani Minister: Increase in revenue from non-oil sector becomes 2014 budget priority

Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 4 /Trend A.Akhundov/

Continuation of the social policy and financial provision for the growth of pensions and salaries and improvement of refugee and IDP welfare will remain the priorities of Azerbaijan's state budget for 2014, Azerbaijani Finance Minister, Samir Sharifov said on Monday during discussions of the state and consolidated draft budgets at a meeting of five parliamentary committees.

"Increasing the specific weight of revenue from the non-oil sector, the pursuit of balance between local and urban incomes and reduction of tax debt will be the priorities in the revenue side's formation," Sharifov said.

According to the minister, the revenue of the state budget for the next year is forecast at 18.384 billion manats (31.4 per cent of the GDP forecast for 2014) and expenses are forecast to reach 20.063 billion manats (34.3 per cent of the GDP).

It is expected that in 2014 revenues will be lower than the forecasted figures of 2013 for 775 million manats, or four per cent and will exceed the actual figures of 2012 to 1.103 billion manats, or 6.4 per cent.

In 2014 expenditures will grow by 1.1 per cent compared with 2013, by 15.2 per cent compared to the actual figure in 2012.

The budget deficit is forecast at 1.679 billion manats compared to 2013 at the level of 691 million manats and the actual figure for 2012 at the level of 135 million manats.

Revenues of the consolidated budget for 2014 were estimated at 21,986 billion manats which exceeds the forecasted figure for this year by 1.257 billion manats, or 6.1 per cent and the actual performance of 2012 by 352.5 million manats, or 1.6 per cent.

Expenditures will amount to 24,444 billion manats which is lower than the forecast for this year by 56 million manats, or 0.2 per cent and higher than the actual performance in 2012 at 5,982 billion manats, or 32.4 per cent.

The consolidated budget deficit is forecast at 2.458 billion manats which makes up 4.2 per cent of the projected GDP.

The official exchange rate for November 4 is 0.7844 AZN/USD.