Nearly half a billion dollars of deficit expected in SOFAZ budget for 2024

Next year, the budget revenues of the State Oil Fund (SOF) are expected to be 12,073.3 million manats ($7,102.14 million), 26.1% less than this year's forecast and budget expenses to be 12,900.2 million manats ($7,588.6 million), 8.9% more than this year's forecast, Report informs, citing the opinion of the Accounting Chamber on the Fund's next budget.

According to the document, 8,146.2 million manats ($4,792 million), or 67.5%, of SOFAZ's revenues in 2024 will be net revenues from oil and gas sales. At the same time, the Fund will receive 3.6 million manats ($2.11 million) from account payments, 24.2 million manats ($14.23 million) from transit, 767.2 million manats ($451.3 million) from bonus payments, and 3.132 billion manats ($1.84 billion) from asset management.

Next year, 12.781 billion manats ($7,518 million), or 99.1%, of SOFAZ expenses will be transferred to the state budget. In addition, the Fund allocated 33.5 million manats ($19.7 million) to the "State program on increasing the international competitiveness of the higher education system in the Republic of Azerbaijan for 2019-2023," 47.5 million manats ($27.94 million) to the "State program for 2022-2026 for enabling youth to study in prestigious foreign universities," and 38.2 million manats ($22.47 million) to its management.

Thus, a deficit of 826.9 million manats ($486.42 million) will appear in the SOFAZ budget in 2024 (the forecast for 2023 is a surplus of 4,487.5 million manats ($2,639.79 million)).