BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 15. Azerbaijan’s balance of payments current account surplus amounted to $4.7 billion, or 12.4 percent of GDP, in January-June 2026, Director of the Statistics Department of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) Samir Nasirov said at a briefing on the presentation of the balance of payments for the first half of 2026, Trend's correspondent reports from the event.
According to him, the figure was twice as high as the level recorded in the same period last year.
“This is a positive factor in terms of macroeconomic stability,” Samir Nasirov said.
He noted that the oil and gas sector made the main positive contribution to the current account balance. The sector’s current account surplus increased by about 24 percent to $9 billion.
“In the non-oil sector, the current account deficit amounted to $4.3 billion,” the CBA official added.
According to Samir Nasirov, a deficit of $3 billion was recorded in the capital and financial account in the first half of 2026.
“One of the main reasons for this deficit was an increase of $3.3 billion in external financial assets, while another reason was an increase of about $300 million in external financial liabilities,” he emphasized.
The CBA official said that the realized portion of reserve assets, another important component of the balance of payments, increased by $1.4 billion during the reporting period. He noted that this figure excludes exchange-rate differences and revaluation effects, with calculations made in accordance with the BPM6 methodology.
Samir Nasirov noted that Azerbaijan’s strategic foreign exchange reserves increased by about $700 million in the first half of 2026, reaching $85.8 billion.
“By the end of the first eight months of the year, strategic foreign exchange reserves amounted to $90.8 billion,” he said.
Nasirov noted that the balance of payments is one of the key indicators for assessing a country’s macroeconomic position and conducting macroeconomic diagnostics.
According to him, Azerbaijan’s balance of payments in the first half of 2026 was directly affected by changes in prices on global commodity, services and financial markets.
