Minister: Azerbaijan ensured macroeconomic stability in 2017
Azerbaijan achieved the goal of ensuring macroeconomic stability and completing the first stage of the process of restoring public confidence in the national currency in 2017, Azerbaijan’s Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said.
This was achieved thanks to political and economic measures conducted under the leadership of the head of state, noted the minister.
He made the remarks at a meeting of five parliamentary committees for discussing the draft state and consolidated budgets for 2018.
Sharifov noted that the draft state and consolidated budgets were prepared taking into account the expectations in the global and national economy.
“Azerbaijan’s state budget revenues for 2018 are expected to total 20.127 billion manats, expenses – 20.905 billion manats,” said the minister.
He added that the draft state budget was prepared by taking into account the oil price at $45 per barrel.
Sharifov also added that the revenues from the Ministry of Taxes are expected to total 7.907 billion manats, from State Customs Committee – 2.43 billion manats, and the State Oil Fund – 9.216 billion manats in 2018.
Azerbaijani payment system postpones terms of issuing its own cards
Azerbaijan’s payment system Goldenpay has postponed the terms of issue of its own cobrand card product, hesab.az, for 2018, the company told Trend.
The company said that currently, preparation is underway for presentation of the card product.
Earlier, it was planned to start the issuance until the end of 2017. Technical and legal issues on launching the project have been completely resolved, said the company adding that Goldenpay signed a contract with Visa International to issue cobranded hesab.az cards.
Initially, it is planned to issue about 10,000 cards. Cards can be obtained by registering on hesab.az portal, or in partner bank’s branches. Unibank is the partner bank on the project.
The cobrand card will have a standard set of functions of international and local cards, and its owners will be able to make non-cash payments for purchase, receive discounts, earn bonuses and others.
The hesab.az cobrand card will be combined with the “electronic wallet” Goldenpay, the launch of which is expected in parallel. Both products will be positioned by a common brand, and will be combined with the client base of the company.