“Azerbaijan shortly will become a rich country,” Samir Sharifov, the Executive Director of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAR), said during the meeting of the Consultative Commission of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiatives (EITI) held in Washington recently.
According to the Executive Director of the SOCAR, founded in 2000 at the decree of former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and set up in January 2001 the SOFAR had $271m in its reserve. At present its funds reach $1.25bn.
Sharifov underlined that major rise in funds is expected in the period from 2006 to 2014. In this connection once of the major objectives of the government is to decrease the dependence of the national economy on the oil factor.
Sharifov also disclosed the forecasts, which set the revenues of the SOFAR at $63.4bn by 2024 from the sale of oil to be extracted from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli project at the price of $30 a barrel, $109.3bn вЂ" at the price of $40 a barrel, $131.2bn вЂ" at the price of $45 a barrel. It also includes interests from placement of the funds for transit via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum pipelines in the foreign banks and incomes from the stakes in the projects.
During the recent visit to Washington for participation in the meeting of the commission, Sharifov also held a meeting at the Congress and the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.