Azerbaijani government predicts 4 percent GDP growth in 2021, Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov said during the presentation of the annual stand-alone publication “Foreign Business in Azerbaijan: Business Climate Survey 2021” by the German-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce, Report informs.
“Business has reacted to government policies and specifically to support policies as well in a very positive manner that is to underline that recovery goes faster than we expected. We were projecting 3.4% of annual growth of GDP for 2021, our international partners didn’t agree, they said that we’ll have 1.7%, we’re projecting that now it will be 4%,” he said.
“It’s not only GDP growth that exceeded our expectations, it’s also non-oil export of Azerbaijan which pursues economy diversification, non-oil export growth was over 30 percent on year-on-year basis. We were projecting some time ago that for the first time in economic history we will go for $2 billion in exports, and now we know we will go over $2 billion. It is supported partially by favorable dynamics and commodity prices but it is only a small fraction because we are talking about number of goods that are being exported and by the way we see that there is a great amount of raw materials that can be further processed so there is a lot of added value potential especially if you look at the fields like plastics and chemicals,” Jabbarov added.
“Our main focus is on Azerbaijan 2030 National Priorities for social-economic development. That document was approved by his Excellency President Ilham Aliyev in February this year. Two things are going to be in the center of our attention for the coming year: the quality and accessibility of public procurements so reforms in that area will speed up and encouragement of competitive environment. I think these two issues are coming up regularly and they are going to be prioritized by us in coming years,” the minister said.
“Azerbaijan lives in a new era following liberation and restoration of the territories, it was already mentioned at one of the landmark projects that has been completed. Our stated ambition is to make sure that the quality of life in Karabakh, in Eastern Zangazur not only equals to what we have in Azerbaijan but also in a way sets a standard and concepts of green energy, concepts of smart city, smart village are some of the stated ambitions which logically follows the number of other projects as well. So therefore, I would like to use this opportunity to invite private sector to consider opportunities,” he added.
“Aghdam industrial park has already been inaugurated; for commencement of the construction in coming weeks we expect one more specialized industrial zone to be inaugurated there and Agency for Development of Economic Zones is open at your service to support and provide as much information as you need about potential activities, opportunities. Just to underline the importance of industrial zone policy in Azerbaijan: up to this day, one dollar in every four dollars of non-oil exports has been produced and exported from special industrial zones in Azerbaijan. That numbers are growing rapidly, and the rate of the growth is higher than the non-oil industry and just to remind the rate of growth of non-oil industry in last three years is in the average of 15.1%,” Jabbarov said.