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Chief of SOFAR: Azerbaijan has fully provided transparent and accountability of oil and gas revenues

Business Materials 1 March 2007 17:01 (UTC +04:00)
Chief of SOFAR:   Azerbaijan has fully provided transparent and accountability of oil and gas revenues

Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Khalilova / Preparatory meeting of stable development Commission's 15th session is being held at UN headquarters of New York where Shahmar Movsumov, Executive Director of State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic, takes part.

According to Thursday news release of UN, Mr. Movsumov said in the conference that many countries possess oil, gas and other natural wealth, however not all manage to use them for their people's prosperity.

Mr. Movsumov said that inappropriate use of natural resources leads to their dissipation and sometimes, to a civil conflict. He also reminded of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), offered by premier minister of Great Britain in stable development Summit held in Johannesburg.

Basing on the principles of this Initiative, the countries must receive real revenues from their natural resources, said Movsumov.

Azerbaijan has secured full transparent and accountable oil and gas revenues by joining EITI. Azerbaijan founded SOFAR in 1999 and National Committee for implementation of the Initiative in 2003. "In 2004 Azerbaijan signed with local and foreign companies a memorandum on mutual understanding in transparency of incomes of gas and oil companies and state revenues from extractive industry," said Movsumov to the session.

The country intends to accumulate US $150bln in the Oil Fund in the next 15 years. Mr. Movsumov underlined importance of providing transparency of revenues and directing the to country population's prosperity.

Representatives of national energy companies and experts in oil and gas and their management discussed the report by UN General Secretary on "Variants of Policy and possible measures for speeding up realization of: energy for stable development". It includes recommendations on broadening the access of all people to modern energy carriers and decrease of expenditure for these services.

Speaking to the assembly, Nazan Kvabazad, OPEC expert, supported proposals by UN chief and said that it was impossible to see industrial revolution and ensure stable development without supplying population of developing states with cheap modern energy resources. He stated that 1,6 billion people don't still have access to electricity and 2.4 billion use wood and other harmful biomasses as energy sources.

Commission session on stable development will last from April 30 to May 11, 2007.

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