Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 27
By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade - Trend:
More than $20 billion of the assets of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) circulates as a capital in the US economy, SOFAZ Executive Director Shahmar Movsumov said in the interview with John Batchelor and American lawyer Christopher Nixon Cox, Trend reports on Sept. 27.
He was speaking during the Jonh Batchelor Show’s episode “On the Road to Baku: The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan celebrates 20 years of growth, & what is to be done?”
Talking about the investments of the fund, Shahmar Movsumov noted that approximately half of the fund’s assets, which amount to $52 billion, is invested in US dollars and the big proportion of this amount accounts for the investments in US economy. He added that the fund had recently started investing in real estate in the US.
SOFAZ was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million.
According to the SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems.
The main goals of the State Oil Fund include accumulation of resources and placement of assets abroad in order to minimize the negative effect to the economy, prevention of "Dutch disease" to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan.
The John Batchelor Show is a breaking-news program that focuses on global politics, economics, war-fighting, hard sciences, space exploration, literature and whimsy.
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