Baku, Azerbaijan, June 5
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
The continued economic development in Azerbaijan has led to a revival in the financial and banking system, Executive Director of Azerbaijan’s Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication Vusal Gasimli said at the 4th EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum in Baku on June 5.
"As of the end of April 2018, the volume of assets of Azerbaijan's banking sector remained stable. The trend of falling loan portfolio of the banks stopped, and the loan portfolios even increased, albeit insignificantly by 0.8 percent or 85 million manats. The dollarization of the loan portfolio decreased from 41.3 percent to 39.6 percent, the share of liquid assets made up 22 percent of the total volume, and the external debt of the sector decreased by 40 percent. During the first four months of 2018, the capital injection into banks amounted to 313 million manats," Gasimli said.
He said that although the oil prices rise, Azerbaijan should continue reforms and improve the business environment to achieve better positions in the Doing Business rating.
"Despite the fact that now oil prices stand at $ 80 per barrel, Azerbaijan should continue economic reforms. In the 2018 rating of Doing Business, we intend to become one of the reforming countries," Gasimli said.
Over the past years, according to him, Azerbaijan has carried out successful reforms related to organization of business, issuing permits for construction, access to loans, protection of the rights of investors and so on.
"Following this, the key direction of the reforms will be improving business climate, strengthening application of corporate standards in state companies, ensuring stability of tax and customs reforms, shifting to a medium-term model for forecasting budget expenditures, pursuing a stable monetary policy and other reforms," Gasimli said.
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