BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 23
By Zeyni Jafarov - Trend:
Azerbaijan's highest provision with foreign reserves among the CIS countries allows to look positively at its sovereign issuer, Gulnara Haydarshina, deputy head of the Market Analysis Department of Gazprombank, told Trend.
According to Haydarshina, Azerbaijan's reserves as of early April 2021 amounted to over $50 billion and were equivalent to 120 percent of GDP, covering about five years of the country's imports.
She noted a low debt burden in Azerbaijan. In particular, the total public debt at the beginning of the year amounted to about $10 billion and increased by only 0.4 percent over the past year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking about the expected return of the Azerbaijani economy to growth, the bank’s representative noted that this figure could be 5.1 percent with the assistance of a favorable conjuncture of hydrocarbon prices, increasing supplies through the TAP gas pipeline launched in November 2020 with an export potential of 10 billion cubic meters per year and fiscal stimulus in the amount of $ 1.3 billion for large-scale infrastructure projects.
"Positive actions from some international rating agencies and the prospects for the country's sovereign rating to return to a level comparable to the BB + group are favorable for Azerbaijan's Eurobonds as a sovereign issuer," concluded Haydarshina.