Azerbaijan finance minister talks reasons of GDP decline

Azerbaijan's GDP amounted to 49.2 billion manats in January-October 2016, which is 3.7 percent less than in the same period last year, the country’s finance minister, Samir Sharifo,v said.

He made the remarks on Nov. 30 during a discussion on the draft state budget and the concept of social and economic development for 2017 and the next three years.

The discussions on the draft state budget began Nov. 30 at a joint session of Azerbaijan’s parliamentary committees on defense, security and fight against corruption, economic policy, industry and entrepreneurship, agricultural policy, public unions and religious structures, as well as natural resources, energy and ecology.

“Azerbaijan’s non-oil GDP in the reporting period decreased by 6.1 percent,” Sharifov said. “A 27.4-percent decrease in the construction sector, a high level dollarization in the country, decrease in the trade turnover, as well as the difficulties faced by Azerbaijan’s banking sector and deterioration of the quality of loan portfolio are the main reasons of the reduction of Azerbaijan’s GDP.” (Trend.az)