Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 13
By Sara Israfilbekova - Trend:
Providing an investment friendly enabling environment is a necessary condition for greater diversification of Azerbaijan’s exports, IMF Mission Chief for Azerbaijan Mohammed El Qorchi said in an interview with Trend and AzerNews.
“Key ingredients include limited state intervention, macroeconomic stability, good infrastructure and institutions, quality education, property protections, market access, female labor force participation, and acceptance of FDI (foreign direct investment),” El Qorchi noted.
“Regarding economic diversification, we think this is a part of a country’s development path,” he said. “The key to success is to reallocate resources from low to high productivity sectors - often through the transformative role of FDI and its impact on governance and innovation.”
The IMF will continue to support Azerbaijan through dialogue, technical assistance, and general policy advice, he added.
Azerbaijan received IMF loans for the support of economic reforms from 1995 to 2005. During the period, the amount of financial support reached $577.3 million. Azerbaijan fully repaid the IMF loans.
Since 2005, Azerbaijan sees no need for financial resources of the IMF, so since 2006, the cooperation with the fund is implemented within consultations and technical assistance on key areas of macroeconomic policy.