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Azerbaijan’s Strategic Currency Reserves Increased by Almost 70%

Business Materials 20 March 2007 15:43 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku/ Trend , corr. I. Khalilova/ According to the balance of payment issued by the National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA), the strategic foreign currency reserves of Azerbaijan, increasing by 69.9%, reached $4,369,000,000 by 1 January, 2007, a source in NBA has informed Trend. $1,454,500,000 of the total is from SOFAZ (State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan) assets, $414,200,000 from Government deposits and $2,500,300,000 from aggregate international NBA assets.

At the same time, the NBA currency reserves has reached $1,967,300,000 which allows the finance of approximately 5 months import of goods and services, excluding the oil and gas sector. That exceeds the criteria of international adequacy, which is commonly accepted in international practice.

Regarding the balance of payment, the total turnover on payments and returns has reached $3.2 bln with 91.4 % ($3 billion) being payments conducted from the country. The major part of the payments ($2,374,500,000) was carried out through repatriation of returns (by means of crude oil) of AIOC's foreign investors, $124.9 mln. to pay wages to non-residences, and interest rates on using loans, including the non-oil sector ($211.4 mln.).

The growth returns of the country has increased by 38.8% against the corresponding figure registered in 2005, and reached $280 mln. against $201.8 mln. the year before that. $63.3 mln. is for interest accumulated due to the management of SOFAZ funds, $74.4 mln. for NBA currency reserves and $13.2 mln to place the assets of second-level banks abroad.

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