Economic crisis and Azerbaijan

For a long time the Azeri leadership assured its population that the world financial crisis has not affected Azerbaijan but during the last session of the Milli Majlis (parliament) Minister of Finance Samir Sharipov stated that the world crisis has had a serious impact on the Azeri economy. He said that 2009 GDP figures show a 0.5% shortfall on projection and incomes have reduced by 4.1%.

The reason given for these results was that the world oil price had been lower than projected. The Minister also said that foreign investors withdrew around USD 2 billion from the Azeri financial market during the 2008-09 crisis. Therefore the Azeri economy, as part of world financial system, also suffered from the economic crisis.