Details added (first version posted on 11:14)
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 1
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Azerbaijan’s state budget may become deficit-free in 2018 and the subsequent years, Amelie Roux, director sovereign and supranational rating analysis at Fitch Ratings international rating agency, said in Baku March 1.
She noted that the deficit of Azerbaijani state budget was quite low in 2017, which makes it possible to predict the deficit-free implementation of the budget in 2018 and in subsequent years.
The state budget deficit of Azerbaijan was lower than that of Kazakhstan and Russia last year, Amelie Roux said.
Fitch expects that Azerbaijan’s state budget will be executed with a surplus of 0.6 percent by the end of 2018, and the rating agency’s forecast regarding the surplus of Azerbaijan’s state budget for 2019 is 2.5 percent, she said.
She noted that such forecasts by Fitch are mainly related to gradual decrease in budget expenditures in Azerbaijan.
If in 2016, Azerbaijan’s state budget expenditures amounted to 35.7 percent of GDP, they amounted to 35.1 percent of GDP in 2017, she said.
Fitch believes that Azerbaijan’s state budget expenditures will amount to 33.3 percent of GDP this year and 31.3 percent of GDP in 2019, she added.
According to Fitch forecast, Azerbaijan’s GDP will be 74.1 billion manats in 2018 and 81.9 billion manats in 2019.
(1.7001 manats = 1 USD on March 1)