Azerbaijan, Baku, May 29 / Trend, S.Aliyev /
Azerbaijan invests largely in the new technologies, in non-oil sector of economy, and the results of these four months of 2013 show an economic growth in non-oil sector close to 11 percent, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said. He made this statement at the opening of the Azerbaijan-U.S. Convention "Vision for the Future", which is underway in Baku.
"And this shows that already we have achieved largely our objective, that is, diversification of economy. And the new sectors of economy which we now try to develop, also demand modern technologies, knowledge, as it was in mid 1990's, when we needed modern technologies to develop our oil fields. Because in the Soviet times, Azerbaijani oil workers could not drill in more than 100-150 meters depths of the water. And modern technologies in energy sector allowed us to discover new fields," President Aliyev said.
He said now modern technologies in ICT, in sectors related to innovation also help us to diversify our economy. "Here again we come to cooperation between our countries. We celebrated a remarkable event this February, when Azerbaijani satellite was launched to space. Azerspace 1 was launched and the satellite was produced in the U.S. It is called Azerspace 1, meaning that there will be Azerspace 2, 3 and maybe more. Thus, we are already in the process of creating space industry in Azerbaijan," he underlined.
President Aliyev stressed that this fruitful cooperation is mutually beneficial, because it allows the country to diversify economy, to invest in modern technology, in education, in human capital, and at the same time it opens new areas of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States.
"And I am sure that today's forum will of course mainly concentrate on the issues related to political aspect of our cooperation and security, but at the same time I think we also need to work very actively on economic cooperation in order to have more economic activity. We're glad that main American companies are among our investors and contractors, but I think that the new opportunities can be discovered, because the economic potential of Azerbaijan is growing," President Aliyev said.
He said the country has a very good record on economic reforms, which is reflected by the leading international financial institutions.
"Therefore we are absolutely sure in the successful development of Azerbaijan, and we will invest largely in the sectors of economy that we need to upgrade. Here we count on our American friends, companies. I hope that we will find new areas of cooperation," President Aliyev said.
According to President Aliyev, Azerbaijan managed to use properly the revenues from energy sector, to re-invest in different sectors of the economy, in infrastructure, and also to implement very radical economic and political reforms. "And this is our strategy - we implement economic and political reforms in parallel. Because having only strong economy, and strong energy sector and even diversified economy will not mean that we will be able to develop successfully in the long term," he said.
Azerbaijan is proud that today Azerbaijan is a country that has freedom in media, it has free internet - something that not every country in the region has. Political reforms, democratic processes are also always on the agenda, he added.
"We are living in our region with historic legacy, with different type of government, and Azerbaijani choice is very clear, it was identified in mid 1990s. We are developing modern, democratic, secular country with strong connections to our partners, with strong cooperation with Euroatlantic institutions," President Aliyev said.
President Aliyev underlined that the country's cooperation with NATO and EU is part of its strategic foreign policy agenda.
"And by the way, our foreign policy stand on many issues was clearly disclosed. I think, during the period of our membership in the Security Council, which in its turn was also recognition of Azerbaijan by international community," President Aliyev said.
"October of 2011 was a remarkable month for us, because we celebrated the 20th anniversary of restoration of our independence, and at the same time election with the support of 155 countries to the UN Security Council, which is the highest international body in the world," President Aliyev said.
He said Azerbaijan has a very strong position in the Muslim world, and it is a part of that world.
"And at the same time we are in the Council of Europe. So we are a natural geographic, political, and cultural bridge, and by the way tomorrow we will have Second International Forum on dialogue of civilizations, where Azerbaijan is playing its role as a model of religious tolerance, peaceful co-existence of different representatives of religions and ethnic groups," President Aliyev underscored.
He said economic and political reforms helped the country to transform.
"As far as economic performance is concerned, I can tell you that our reforms were highly noted by international financial institutions. During the years of economic financial crisis, Fitch, Moody's and S&P upgraded Azerbaijan's ratings, and according to world economic forum's assessment, Azerbaijani economy is among the 50 most competitive economies of the world. And this is not because of oil and gas. There are countries that produce 5 or more times more oil and gas than Azerbaijan, and this is not the indicator of success," he emphasized.
According to President Aliyev, the indicator of success is diversification, creation of opportunities for business, strong social policy, investments, education and knowledge.
"And I can tell that for the last 10 years we have had remarkable economic growth. GDP grew 3 times, but the most important is that poverty level dropped from 50 percent to 6 percent, and this is the reflection of proper use of our assets," President Aliyev said.
He underlined that transparent accountability, transparency in revenues control and distribution was one of the main prerequisites for success.
"We are very proud that Azerbaijani State Oil Fund is among the most transparent sovereign wealth funds in the world. We managed to reduce the unemployment down to 5.2 percent, and in the coming years with new huge investments I am sure it will decrease even more. We have also a very stable financial situation, our foreign reserves are equal to 70 percent of our GDP, while direct foreign debt is 7 percent of the GDP," he said.
President Aliyev said that relationship between Azerbaijan and the U.S. played a very important role in the country's transformation.
"The US has always been side-by-side with us in our reforms, transformation, in energy security, regional security, and today we continue this fruitful cooperation. And I think that today's forum is a very clear example of that. I am sure that the forum will have very interesting discussions, open, sincere, exchange of views on how we go on, in order to continue friendship and partnership between our countries and our nations," he noted.