SOFAZ sees decline in profitability on investment portfolio - REVIEW

Baku. 4 March. REPORT.AZ/ As of January 1, 2019, investment portfolio of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) amounted to $38,514,700,000, of which 54.3% was in US dollar, Report informs.

According to the SOFAZ, this figure was 50.6% as of January 1, 2018.

In the reporting period, the share of EUR dropped from 35.7% to 34.4%, GBP from 5.1% to 4.6%, AUD from 0.7% to 0.6%, TRY from 1% to 0.8%, RUB from 1.1% to 0.7%, KRW from 1.3% to 0.5%, CNY from 1.4% to 1.3%, other currencies from 1.6% to 1.3% and JPY remained unchanged at 1.5%.

As at the end of this year, 76.5% of Fund’s investment portfolio was in the instruments of bonds and monetary market, while this figure was 76.3% a year earlier. Share of stakes in the portfolio dropped from 14.9% to 12.8%, real property remained unchanged at 5.3%, gold rose to 5.4% from 3.5%.

As of early 2019, SOFAZ’s investment portfolio was geographically distributed as follows: EU countries fell from 38.4% to 37.05%, North America from 27.87% to 23.1%, Asia-Pacific region rose from 26.05% to 28.71%, Australia and New Zealand slid from 2.71% to 2.64%, African countries increased from 0.12% to 0.79%, South America from 0.03% to 0.06%, international financial organizations from 4.82% to 7.65%. By the way, the share of developed countries in SOFAZ investment portfolio descended from 69.03% to 66.9%, developing countries from 26.15% to 25.45%.

Profitability of SOFAZ investment portfolio amounted to 0.35% in 2018 against 1.88% a year earlier. Throughout the year, the profitability on bonds and monetary market instruments ascended from 0.65% to 0.68%, investments in real property from 0.22% to 0.54%, investments in stakes declined from 1.01% to 0.87%.