BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 18
By Zeyni Jafarov - Trend:
High revenues from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) to the state budget kept its surplus by early April, Trend reports on May 18 referring to the monthly report of the World Bank (WB).
According to the WB, the state budget showed a deficit indicator in March but a surplus was stressed for the entire first quarter of 2021.
The state budget revenues declined at an annualized rate of 4.7 percent in March and by 26.6 percent in the first quarter, reflecting the high transfers of SOFAZ a year earlier to meet the growing demand for foreign exchange during the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price shock.
However, revenues from the non-oil and gas sector in the first quarter of 2021 increased by 4.2 percent year on year.
The state budget expenditure increased by 6.7 percent in March and by 5.1 percent in the first quarter of 2021 and this was stipulated by the annualized increase in current spending (by 2.2 percent) and capital spending (18.8 percent).
As a result, Azerbaijan's budget surplus decreased to 1.1 percent at the end of the first quarter as the deficit worth 346.9 million manat ($204.05 million) was observed in the state budget during the last month of the quarter.
Earlier, the WB predicted the ratio of Azerbaijan's state budget deficit to GDP at 2.5 percent in 2021.
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