BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 26
By Zeyni Jafarov - Trend:
The Azerbaijani economy passed through its peak slowdown period in the second and third quarters of 2020, and began gradually recovering in the fourth quarter of this year, Gulnara Haydarshina, deputy head of the Russian Gazprombank’s market analysis department, told Trend.
According to Haydarshina, due to the extension of the special quarantine regime in Azerbaijan until the end of December 2020 and a slower recovery in oil prices, Azerbaijan’s GDP is forecasted to decline by 3.7 percent until the end of the current year. However, already in 2021, with the average price of Brent oil at $40-45 per barrel, the Azerbaijani economy will return to growth from 0.5 to 3.1 percent.
She noted that it was the weakening of oil prices and internal restrictive measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijan that had a direct impact on the decline in GDP in 2020. In 3Q2020, Azerbaijan's GDP edged down by 3.9 percent, while in the same period of last year, the country's economy grew by 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile, as the department’s head said, the non-oil sectors demonstrated the largest decline. So, the freight transport turnover decreased by 18.5 percent, and the value of paid services to the population – by 25.7 percent. The retail trade also suffered a loss, declining 1.6 percent.
In conclusion, Haydarshina stressed that the baseline scenario for the current year assumed the recovery of economic activity in Azerbaijan close to the late third quarter of 2020, subject to the lifting of the pandemic-related restrictive measures.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @ jafarov_zeyni