Samir Sharifov: Some laggings are observed on infrastructure projects

"Only 37% of our expenditures on government investments has been executed during six months," Minister of Finance Samir Sharifov said at the meeting on socioeconomic field presided by President Ilham Aliyev.

"It has some objective reasons. About $1.14 billion of loan is planned to be taken out. The use coefficient of these loans are not so high. We think that our relevant bodies are to accelerate the works in this field. Some cases don’t depend only on them. There are some procurement procedures, which have to be followed by international financial organizations. All these need a certain time. In some cases, measures should be taken under the law on state procurements in Azerbaijan," he said.

"We think that as a result of such delays, certain laggings are observed in the infrastructural projects. This is the work of our customs and tax authorities. Consequently, it can cause certain obstacle to us in fulfillment of forecast on incomes and execution of expenditures. Therefore, we try the budget expenditures to be executed harmoniously and majority of expenditures not to be executed at the end of the year – November and December," the minister added.