Azerbaijani budget makes 76% of South Caucasus budget

In 2013 the state budget revenues of Azerbaijan will make AZN 19,159,000,000 ($24,400,000,0000, spending-AZN 19,850,000,000 ($25,200,000,000), which is a 15.7 and 16 times more than in 2003.

The statement came from research worker of the department for economic analysis and globalization issues of the Center for Strategic Studies Zaur Veliyev, speaking at a briefing organized by the Center for Strategic Studies in his speech on ‘State Budget of 2013’.

“Thus, the budget of 2013 is the biggest state budget of Azerbaijan since independence”, Veliyev said.

He noted that budget costs in the future will make some 35.3% of the overall GDP of the country.

“If we take the indicators of consolidated budget, in 2013 this indicator is to make 43.6%, BRICS countries-31.7%, among CIS countries-24.5-42.1% ratio”, the center official said.

He said the huge funding allows a state to send budget resources to the settlement of problems facing the public.

On the other hand, Veliyev noted that when the majority of states in post-crisis period faced the need for fiscal consolidation, Azerbaijan is raising its expenses every year.

“In 2013 the Georgian budget costs are predicted to be $4.9bn, Armenia-$2.6bn.

Thus, the Azerbaijani budget makes 76% of the South Caucasus budget, in general”, Veliyev said.

The representative of the center especially noted that Azerbaijan took the fifth position among the world countries in the ‘Global competitiveness rating 2012-2013’ of the World Economic Forum in 2011 for the ratio of budget balance towards GDP.

“In general, over the past 10 years the percent correlation of the budget balance to GDP was no lower than 1% and in ‘Global competitiveness rating 2012-2013’ Azerbaijan took the 12th place for such an indicator as the low level of state borrowings.

In budget costs the share of socially oriented costs makes 25.4% (AZN 5.037bn). If we take the functional classification of budget expenses, 22.3% (AZN 4,427,400,000) of all costs were spent in this direction. Overall, in the coming years the government plans raising salaries, pensions and allowances to more than 1,000,000 citizens”, Veliyev said. (News.Az)