Azerbaijan builds up its strategic gold reserves
As financial history shows, every prosperous country must have gold reserves. Gold was one of few investments that brought profit to the investors during the global financial crisis.
The world central banks are expected to have bought about 450 tons of gold in 2011 and the situation will be repeated in 2012, as more and more banks diversify their reserves by increasing the share of investments in gold. Morgan Stanley analysts think that gold will be a more interesting target for investment than stocks or currency in 2012.
Azerbaijan also began accumulating gold mined at its own fields into its reserves, rather than foreign gold bought on the world markets. In late November, Azerbaijan got 3.998.2 troy ounces (124.4 kilograms) of gold mined at the Gadabey field.
According to December 1, the total amount of gold in Azerbaijan kept at the Central Bank, amounts to 16512.9 troy ounces (513.6 kilograms). Its market value is $28.4 million.
The gold mined at the Azerbaijani Gadabey field was delivered and cleared in Switzerland with the profitable part being handed over to Azerbaijan in bars. Earlier, Azerbaijan received 12514.7 troy ounces (389.2 kilograms) of gold of 999.9 standard.
Anglo Asian Mining Plc. gold producer in Azerbaijan plans to deliver 4000-5000 ounces of gold for keeping in the Azerbaijani Central Bank by the end of this year. The market value of gold is approaching $10 million.
A country having gold deposits becomes a currency producer that is recognised by other countries and any business entities regardless of their place and role in the global community. Gold is rightly called a 'currency without borders'.
Many Azerbaijani small and medium gold deposits may arouse interest of foreign investors who are able to provide the necessary technology and capital even in the case of average gold prices. Moreover investment risk is lower than in the whole region. A low level of state regulation of the industry, as well as a more liberal and stable economy may be referred to as being one of Azerbaijan's advantages.
If gold prices remain at the same level or even increase over the next few years, we can predict further growth in business activity in the Azerbaijani gold mining industry from both domestic and foreign investors.
How safe is Internet banking in Azerbaijan?
The "Bank - Client" electronic systems are widely used worldwide. They became an integral part of banking practice for physical and legal entities. The matter does not only rest in IT development and the Internet. It is much more convenient for banks to work this way. Naturally, they encourage customers by forcing them to move to "paperless" technologies. But how safe are these solutions?
Online banking has a number of advantages that benefit both the bank and its customers. First, it frees the client from the necessity of visiting the bank branches and offices to make the required transactions. The bank allows saving on the costs of customer service. Second, the Internet banking is cheap or even free in some cases. It is functional wherever there is Internet. This makes it even more attractive. Third, there is a specific range of services, which aims to serve legal entities and companies. This facilitates and accelerates the process of conducting their financial transactions.
However, customers of Azerbaijani banks do not always trust the Internet technologies and often prefer making banking operations through a bank clerk. Local online banking and number of users of Internet banking in Azerbaijan are much inferior to the latter compared to the large commercial European or Russian banks.
Millions of people across the globe choose online banking from traditional banking services. The number of online bank customers is growing rapidly. At present, the figure hits 600 million worldwide. It is not much, but the figure increases each year by 20 percent. This occurs despite the fact that about 2 million Americans were affected by fraudulent activity in 2004, during the promotion of the service.
Besides the technical departments of banks constantly modernize the security system to protect the customers' bank accounts, there are some risks while using this online services.
Hackers break into the database, regardless of credit card holders' caution. The level of data protection in virtual mode does not depend on users. "As a rule, it is difficult to determine the reliability of online safety system of a bank," Geoff Webb, director of department at Credant Technologies said. The banks do not like to share secrets of security, because they do not want the swindlers to know about them. However, there are common elements: financial organizations must encrypt the data, to separate the information about the credit cards from other information, as well as to ensure maximum security of data entered in the form of Internet applications. Moreover, constant trainings on information security for banks' employees is another key component.
The U.S authorities pay much attention to the Internet security. The Congress and the Ministry of Commerce deal with these issues. President Obama signed a new law concerning data protection in cyberspace in May.
Milli Kart was successfully certified for compliance with safety standards Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) in the area of payment cards in Azerbaijan. PCI DSS standard was designed to improve security of personal data of cardholders.
Another processing center Azericard activated a module. It allows entering a password 3D Secure while making online payments. 3D Secure password is PIN for this card. It allows paying for goods and services directly through the website. If the website supports 3D Secure technologies, the system will automatically ask to enter 3D Secure password. Only the cardholder will know about this. The security of data transmission in a network is ensured by using a protocol for encrypting information Secure Socket Layer (SSL). 3D Secure protocol was developed by international payment systems VISA International and MasterCard International to protect the funds of the clients, who make transactions in the Internet.
The Internet banking system is well secured. All transmitted information is encrypted in the system. The e-certificates are used to identify the user. One-time passwords are used while operating in the system. They are valid for only this operation in the system.
However, the operations with the bank via the Internet make it necessary for the client to use additional personal protective means. While using online banking, it is possible to check accounts daily, rather than once a month by subscription. One should not use simple passwords, about which others may guess. One should also regularly change passwords, install good anti-virus protection, to destroy all account statements, or store them in a safe place.
Moreover, it is necessary to have a strong legislative regulation order. It has not been formed by the Azerbaijani banking legislation. From a legal point of view, Internet banking in the narrow sense is a special kind of banking activity.
Knowing that the state can protect from troubles in the Internet, citizens will stop ignoring the Internet banking facilities. By taking the simplest security measures, one can significantly reduce the risk of compromising personal data and to easily use simplified banking services through a network. It is possible to become a victim of fraud in real life without certain insurance.
Caviar stocks are always in demand and deficit
The keynote of all the discussions and negotiations at the 32nd session of the Commission on Aquatic Bio resources of the Caspian Sea in Baku on December 14-15 was the problem of catching sturgeon in the Caspian Sea. It should be noted that as a result of the widespread prosperity of poaching in the Caspian littoral states, the sturgeon population has begun to decline sharply. According to the West's experts from various environmental organisations, the sturgeon may disappear.
At present, the Caspian states - Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have a one-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing. For the first time, Kazakhstan made this proposal on the moratorium at the Baku summit, held on November 18, 2010. Other Caspian countries supported the proposal. A directive was made to develop a mechanism for imposing a moratorium on sturgeon fishing.
According to Azerbaijani Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Rauf Hajiyev, the current state of sturgeon stocks is assessed as critical. "There is the issue of imposing a total ban on their commercial fishing," he said. "Only adopting these measures for the next five to10 years will halt the decline in the number of valuable fish species and create conditions to form a new legal regime to use them on a long-term sustainable basis."
However, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora CITES (CITES) never tires of blaming the Caspian littoral countries of failing to put an end to large-scale poaching in the Caspian Sea. There was such a large volume of illegal fishing that CITES experts have found it difficult to assess it in order to calculate new production quotas, allowing the maintenance of the sturgeon shoals on the basis of the data.
The illegal production of black caviar is widespread. According to statistics of the Russian law enforcement agencies, poaching in the Russian caviar market is as high as 90 per cent. According to the most modest estimates, Russia's economy loses annually at least $500 million from the sale of illegal fish products. Unfortunately, the data on Azerbaijan is unknown.
Intensified hydrocarbon production in the offshore oil fields significantly contributes to reduce the sturgeon population and in general worsen the environmental situation in the Caspian Sea. However, one should remember that if the world price of a barrel of oil is slightly more than $100, 1 kilogramme of black sturgeon caviar in the world reaches on the average $1000-$5000. It should be noted that the environmental tension in the Caspian Sea and the loss of budget of the surrounding countries becomes more evident.
Given this situation, world environment specialists propose to eradicate poaching in the Caspian Sea and impose a moratorium on sturgeon fishing by limiting the research objectives, to strengthen the work on sturgeon breeding and to organise the periodic monitoring to comply with the obligations taken by the littoral countries with the world environment specialists.
Azerbaijan overall supports a 10-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea as the sturgeon begin laying eggs as late as eight to10 years, Azerbaijani Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Huseyn Bagirov said.
The sturgeon and caviar business in Iran is quite effectively controlled by the state (violation is punishable by sentences up to the death penalty). It proposes to impose a five-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea. This was made by deputy head of the Iran Fisheries Organisation Shilat Ali Askar Mujahideeni at the 32nd meeting.
Mr Mujahideeni said that Iran seriously works to preserve the biological resources of the Caspian Sea. He thinks that the Caspian countries must act together to increase fish stocks. At present, Iran bans commercial fishing in the Caspian Sea and has also proposed to create special security units to combat illegal fishing in the Caspian littoral countries.