The economy growth rate of the CIS countries is significantly higher than the indicators of the European Union and countries of North American Association of Free Trade (NAAFT).
According to the report of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the growth centers are Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which became leaders for the growth of the GDP, in 2006 and the indicator may equal 26%, Trend reports with reference to the Statement of the EBRD Baku Office.
The economy of the Commonwealth of Independent States exceeds the growth rate of the European Union and NAAFT. According to the EBRD report, the CIS became an international organization with the fastest economical growth rate. The EBRD experts represented the results of the CIS economical analysis. As a result of 2006, the economic growth of the CIS member-countries equaled 6.9% against 6.6% in 2005. This was down from 8% in 2004 mainly due to a slowdown in Russia. Thus, according to the key indicators, the CIS development exceeds the European Union and NAAFT.
Over the past two decades, the gross economic growth rate of the European Union is less by 1-1.3% than it was in America. The experts have doubts about the implementation of the tasks to make the European Union the most competitive and dynamically developing country of the region by 2010.
According to many economical indicators, the USA and European Union remain behind their western colleagues. In particular, the leadership belongs to the oil producing countries of the Near East.
We did not expect such economical growth of the CIS countries, the chief economist of the EBRD and author of the report, Erik Bergloph said. According to the information provided by the EBRD, in the near future, the development of the CIS countries will continue at the same rate. According to Bergloph, the main economical growth was observed in Russian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan has become one of the world's fastest growing economies with a growth of over 26% due to the expansion of its oil sector with the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline this year. Countries such as Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine, which do not have significant energy resources, are seeing robust private consumption, rapid credit growth and strong remittance flows.