BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 22
By Zeyni Jafarov - Trend:
The decline in Azerbaijan's GDP in the first 4 months of 2021 has softened compared to the same period of 2020, when the economy decreased by about 4 percent, Gulnara Haydarshina, Deputy Head of the Market Analysis Department of Gazprombank, told Trend.
Moreover, in April 2021, Azerbaijan's economy returned to growth, which approached 3 percent, she said.
“The return of the Azerbaijani economy to growth was facilitated by the recovery of the non-oil sector, which showed an increase of 4.1 percent. This made it possible to compensate for the decline in the oil and gas sector by 8.4 percent,” the Gazprombank representative said.
“Such a significant growth in the non-oil sector was facilitated by the cancellation of restrictive measures due to the pandemic in January and the return of the economy to normal, as well as the support of non-oil sector entities during this period, which made it possible to return to growth as quickly as possible,”
"We expect that the recovery trend in the non-oil sector will intensify towards the end of the second quarter of 2021, when the first positive results of mass vaccination will be obtained," said Haydarshina.
The oil and gas sector is expected to return to growth due to the recovery of oil prices to levels 3.5 times more compared to the minimum since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, recorded in April last year.
From January through April 2021, Azerbaijan's GDP decreased by 0.2 percent on annual basis and amounted to 25 billion manat ($14.7 billion).
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