BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 29
Trend:
Addressing of the tasks on combating the "shadow economy", increasing of transparency in the economic processes, including labor relations, legalizing informal jobs and wages, outlined by Azerbaijani president, is one of the priority areas of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Economy, a source in the ministry told Trend.
According to the source, after the transfer of control over the calculation and payment of social insurance fees in 2019 to the State Tax Service under the Ministry of Economy, owing to reforms in this area and the work done, as of July 1, 2020, the number of employment contracts, having grown by 107,300 since the beginning of the year, amounted to 1.6 million.
"The number of employment contracts in the non-oil private sector amounted to 748,800, an increase of 109,900. In June 2020, the growth in the number of concluded employment contracts made up 20,700. According to the surveys, the growth in the number of employment contracts in the first half of this year has been due to the non-oil private sector," said the ministry.
"From January 1, 2019, the growth in the number of employment contracts in the non-oil private sector amounted to 208,900. At the end of the first half of this year, the ratio of this indicator to the total number of employment contracts rose from 38.5 percent in 2018 to 45.1 percent," the ministry said.
The growth rates of the wage fund in the non-oil private sector (29.1 percent) significantly exceeded the rates of nominal growth of the population's monetary income (7.4 percent). So, the growth rate of the wage fund in the non-oil private sector during the first half of 2020 amounted to 11 percent, whilst the rate of nominal growth of the population's monetary income made up 0.6 percent.
During the first half of 2020, the state budget received contributions for compulsory state social insurance in the amount of 1.7 million manat ($1 million) against the forecast of 1.4 million manat ($820,000). Thus, the forecast exceeded 14.7 percent, that is, 218.8 million manat ($128.7 million).
In 1H2020, budget revenues through the above contributions were 434.6 million manat ($255.6 million) or 34.1 percent more than the same indicator in 2019. Revenues on the budget sector grew by 235.7 million manat ($138.6 million) or 51.3 percent, and on the extra-budgetary sector - by 198.9 million manat ($117 million) or 24.4 percent compared to the same period of last year.
"Insurance fees for unemployment in the reporting period amounted to 58.6 million manat ($34.4 million) against the forecast of 53.6 million manat ($31.5 million). Thus, the forecast exceeded 109.2 percent, that is, 4.9 million manat ($2.8 million). The total amount of the contributions increased by 11.5 million manat (24.5 percent) compared to the same period of last year. Incomes in the budget sector increased by 5.7 million manat or $3.3 million (45.3 percent), in the non-budget sector - by 5.8 million manat or $3.4 million (16.8 percent) compared to the same period of last year," said the ministry.
Reforms in the payment of social contributions have also eased the budgetary dependence of the State Social Protection Fund.
"So, if in 2017 the share of transfers to the fund's budget from the state treasury was 38.2 percent, then after the transfer of control over revenues and payments on social collections to tax authorities in 2019 it amounted to 28.7 percent," said the ministry.