Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 4
By A. Akhundov - Trend: The Azerbaijani Finance Ministry expects a reduction in the growth rate of the main budget parameters in the coming years, Azerbaijani Finance Minister, Samir Sharifov said on Monday during discussions of the state and consolidated draft budgets for 2014 at a meeting of five parliamentary committees, namely the Economic Policy, Social Policy, Security and Defense, Natural Resources, Energy and Ecology and Agrarian Policy Committees.
"In 2014, the budget expenditures will exceed 20 billion manats. This is a historic figure. This is a very good indicator for such a young country as Azerbaijan. However, Azerbaijan has already entered the list of middle-income countries, hence the rate of growth of its budget parameters will be reduced in the future," he said.
However, the minister said that Azerbaijan will continue to encourage revenue growth. Sharifov gave the fight against illegal employment and tax evasion as examples.
The revenue of the state budget for the next year is forecasted at 18.384 billion manat (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 official exchange rate for November 4 is 0.7844 AZN/USD.