BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.1
By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:
The volume of transfers from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) to the budget of Azerbaijan shall increase by 850 million manat ($500 million), or by 7.5 percent, the draft amendments to the law of Azerbaijan "On the state budget for 2020" said, Trend reports.
According to the draft, the expenses of SOFAZ will amount to 12.41 billion manat ($7.3 billion), which is 7.4 percent more than the approved forecast for the current year.
The new fiscal rules envision that the upper limits for the consolidated budget expenditures and deductions from the fund to the state budget shall be determined on the basis of net financial assets and projected oil revenues. At the same time, budgetary regulation requires that the deficit of the non-oil base of the consolidated budget be less than the corresponding figure for the previous year.
The expected volumes of expenditures of the consolidated budget and transfers from SOFAZ to the state budget should be reduced by about 2.5 billion manat ($1.47 billion), or 8.4 percent and 21.7 percent, respectively.
In addition, given the realities of new oil prices and declining oil production, the application of the fiscal rule in preparing the fiscal basis for 2021 and the next three years requires a sharp cut in budget spending in the medium term.
(1 USD = 1.7 AZN on Aug.1)
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