Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 20
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Premiums in Azerbaijan’s insurance market in 2018 may exceed last year’s figure, said Ibrahim Alishov, executive director of the Azerbaijan Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FIMSA), on Sept. 20 during the 7th International Caspian Energy Forum Baku 2018.
“If last year, premiums in Azerbaijan’s insurance sector amounted to almost 568 million manats, in the eight months of this year insurance companies collected premiums worth 517 million manats,” he said. “This shows that the growth of Azerbaijan’s insurance sector will continue in 2018 as well.”
Alishov added that FIMSA also hopes to significantly increase the insurance sector's share in Azerbaijan’s GDP.
“In line with the strategic roadmap for the development of the financial sector, the share of the insurance market in Azerbaijan’s GDP should reach 1.6 percent by 2020,” Alishov said. “We are successfully moving towards this indicator. The share of the insurance sector in GDP was 0.9 percent last year; this figure was already 1.1 percent following the seven months of this year.”
He also noted gradual recovery in the banking sector of Azerbaijan. He said this year the Azerbaijani banks began to gradually restore lending and increase capital.
“Over the past year, the volume of bank deposits of the Azerbaijani population has increased by 16 percent,” Alishov said. “The majority of these deposits are placed in manats. The level of dollarization has decreased from 66.7 percent at the beginning of the year to 63 percent. Since the beginning of the year, banks issued loans worth 3.7 billion manats, of which 2 billion manats accounted for business loans.”
There are 21 insurance companies and 30 banks in Azerbaijan.
(1.7 AZN = 1 USD on Sept. 20)
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