Azerbaijan, Baku, 14 July / corr. Trend / I.Khalilova / Changes and supplements were injected into the budget of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAR) in 2008 at the President's decree and it was formed with the surplus of AZN 5,763,890 instead of earlier forecasted AZN 1,928,508.
Income of the Fund amounted to AZN 10,144,743,200, with a rise by 2.8 times as compared to previous forecast and expenditure by 2.6 times in the amount of AZN 4,380,853,600. Large part of the Fund's returns (96.8%) is expected from hydrocarbon purchase. Income from the realization of oil contracts are forecasted at AZN 9,819,516,000 (earlier it was AZN 3,473,109,600), from dividends of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project - AZN 104,806,000 (AZN 13,423,200). Income is expected at the amount of AZN 148,898,100 (AZN 121,928,200) from capital management of the Oil Fund and AZN 900,000 from permanent incomes as it was provided earlier.
Changes in the Oil Fund's expenditure touched only transfer to the public budget, which was increased from AZN 1.100mln to AZN 3.800mln. As to the rest expenditure articles, a total of AZN 145mln was allocated on improvement of refugees and forced immigrants' social and home problems, AZN 120,600,000 on financing of the projects in Samur-Absheron irrigation system's reconstruction, AZN 211,820,000 on construction of water supply system from Oguz-Gabala zone to Baku, AZN 88,682,000 on Baku-Tbilisi-Gars railway main, and AZN 5mln on the State program of the Azerbaijani youth's education in foreign countries. Expenditure of the Oil Fund is designed in the amount of AZN 9,751,600.
According to earlier adopted budget, income amounted to AZN 3,609,361,000 and expenditure to AZN 1,680,853,600.
Update necessity of budget forecasts aroused because of price rise of oil at world markets. As a result, the government increased the forecast on oil price from $50 to $70 per barrel and consolidated budget's forecasts were formed on this basis. These changes were injected within the framework of update of the state budget's forecasts in May 2008.
The exchange rate for US dollar was AZN 0.8076 on 12 July.
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