Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan, 27 / Trend , I.Khalilova, N.Abdullayeva /
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plans to send an expanded delegation headed by Deputy Director of IMF's Middle East and Central Asia Valériy Fiker to Azerbaijan to study the macroeconomic situation in the country in terms of global financial crisis, Fund's Baku office head Koba Gvenitadze said.
"The purpose of the visit is to interact
with the Azerbaijani Government to identify the impact of global crisis on the
economy," said Gvenitadze.
According to him, the IMF forecasts for Azerbaijan have not changed, and the
Government has agreed to publish them.
According to results of the IMF mission's visit to Baku on Dec.10-17, the Fund estimated the favorable enough the prospects of economic development in Azerbaijan. However, they are highly susceptible to volatile situation on foreign markets and what is happening in the oil sector. The report states that the positive effect of slowing global economic growth to Azerbaijan was halting trend of high inflation, which was observed in the country's economy since the end of 2005.
A sharp fall in world prices of food and
commodities led to a reduction of inflation rate at the end of November to 19
per cent. In 2008, it was 20.8 percent, while the Exchange Fund had projected
at 17 percent.
"Further slowdown in the oil sector and lower prices of black gold leads to a
slowdown in the accumulation of foreign assets
Prospects for 2009 are very uncertain. Assuming that existing technical problems will continue until March. The growth in the oil sector will reach 18 percent (in 2008 it totaled seven percent to IMF's forecasts six per cent). If a moderate fiscal expansion invested in budgeted in 2009 will be fully implemented, and banks will slow lending operations to strengthen their balance sheets, non-oil sector growth rate to fall to six per cent (in 2008 its reached 15.7 percent).
According to forecasts, inflation will reduce to 9 percent to the end of 2009 as the result of world price cutting for foodstuffs, raw materials and slowdown of growth of domestic demand, the IMF report says.
Moreover, stabile foreign position will be preserved as earlier and further accumulation of strategic foreign assets will continue though more slowly. These prospects of economy development are subjected to deteriorate the situation, mainly, connected with further price cutting for oil and technical difficulties with realization of oil extraction plans for 2009. Unfavorable development of situation in the region can also impact negatively on economic activity in non-oil sector.
During the forthcoming visit of the IMF mission to Baku, experts of the fund will also get familiarize with fulfillment of forecast on tax incomings and the last terms of deposit account on VAT applying introduced early 2008.
"In case of successful application of this project in Azerbaijan, we will offer this model to other countries too," head of the mission said during the last visit.
According to Fiker, Azerbaijan will be able to overcome world crisis with slight damage.
"The distant observations indicate that crisis will slightly impact on Azerbaijan," head of the mission said.
Despite this, she pointed at the necessity to conduct grave analysis by the government of the country and to implement necessary actions.
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