Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan scores well in Global Competitiveness report

SEPT. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — President Ilham Aliyev’s team have been highlighting Azerbaijan’s jump up the ranks of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness annual report.

It’s an election year, after all, in Azerbaijan and the WEF report is significant.

In an interview, Elnur Aslanov, head of the Mr Aliyev’s information centre, said Azerbaijan had moved to 39th position in the rankings from 48 last year because of the social and economic policies of the president.

It’s an impressive statistic. Azerbaijan has jumped from 55th position in 2011 and now lies above several EU states.

But it’s also worth looking at the detail.

The reason Azerbaijan ranks so highly in the WEF index is its high score for macroeconomic stability. Azerbaijan’s energy wealth gives it a healthy government debt ratio, a decent government budget balance and strong gross national savings. Azerbaijan also has relatively low inflation, another positive.

The report, though, also details serious shortcomings. These were mainly in the health and education sectors. Notably amongst these was the ranking for school management — 133rd in the world, out of 148 countries.

Significantly, too, of the business executives interviewed for the report nearly a quarter said corruption was still the biggest problem for doing business in Azerbaijan.

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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)

Iran sends warning to Azerbaijan

SEPT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a thinly veiled reference to Azerbaijan’s weapons purchases from Israel, Iranian navy commander Habibollah Sayari told local media that some Caspian Sea countries wanted to disrupt peace in the region. Azerbaijan has been spending billions of dollars in recent years bolstering its military.

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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)

Azerbaijan says Nabucco is not dead

SEPT. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Maybe, just maybe, the Nabucco pipeline project is not dead yet. That was the message given out by Natik Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s oil and gas minister, on Sept. 5.

Nabucco was the ambitious project backed by Central European countries to pump gas from Azerbaijan’s sector of the Caspian Sea.

After years of planning and negotiations it lost out on the lucrative contract earlier this year to a rival bid, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). TAP will pump Azerbaijani gas to Europe through the Balkans and under the Adriatic Sea to Italy.

And that looked like that for Nabucco.

Except that now Mr Aliyev has opened up the possibility of building another pipeline to carry gas to Europe.

“Nabucco is not dead,” he said, according to media reports. “It depends on our resources and I think that we have enough resources to increase production.”

Azerbaijan and Europe have become increasingly dependent on each other over the past few years. Europe has been desperately trying to reduce its dependency on gas from Russia, seen as an unreliable partner. Azerbaijan has also been keen to diversify its client base away from Russia.

When the Caspian Sea gas field Shah Deniz II starts production in 2019/2020 it will transform Azerbaijan’s energy outlook. It may also need more pipelines snaking from the Caspian Sea towards Europe.

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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)

Azerbaijan may need more pipelines

SEPT. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan may need another gas pipeline once Shah Deniz II starts production in 2019/2020, media quoted the Azerbaijani energy minister, Natik Aliyev, as saying. His statement may breathe fresh life into the Nabucco project which lost out on pumping gas to Europe earlier this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)

Azerbaijan considers pre-marriage HIV test

AUG. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s parliament will consider legislation that will force couples to take a series of health tests for HIV and other infections before they marry, media reported. A number of countries already insist on these tests, including some parts of Russia. Human rights groups criticise the tests as invasive.

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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)

Azerbaijan continues to buy gold

AUG. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan continued to buy gold in July, news agencies quoted the IMF as saying, part of its stated plan to increase its bullion reserves. As well as buying gold, Azerbaijan has also said that it wants to increase its portfolio of property and currencies.

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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)

HRW criticises Azerbaijan

SEPT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch, the New York-based lobby group, accused Azerbaijan’s government of “a deliberate, abusive strategy to limit dissent”. It also said that this campaign against dissenters and opposition activists was intensifying in the run up to the Oct. 9 election.

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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)

Opposition candidate disqualified in Azerbaijan

AUG. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Election Committee disqualified Rustam Ibragimbekov, a well-known screenwriter, from standing as the main opposition candidate in a presidential election. Mr Ibragimbekov holds dual Azerbaijan-Russia citizenship, illegal under the election rules.

(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)

Suicide in Azerbaijan’s military base

AUG. 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A conscript in Azerbaijan’s army hanged himself at a military base, media reported. Human rights groups have previously criticised conditions for conscripts in Azerbaijan’s army which has seen a number of suicides in the past few years. They have said bullying is a common feature of life in Azerbaijan’s armed forces.

(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)

Lithuanian ambassador to be sacked after gaffe in Azerbaijan

AUG. 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A diplomatic scandal centred on the status of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh is likely to lead to the sacking of Lithuania’s envoy in Baku.

Lithuania’s media is reporting that Dalia Grybauskaite, the Lithuanian President, is likely to fire her envoys to Hungary and Azerbaijan after they were recorded describing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Armenia.

The diplomatic spat not only embarrasses Lithuania but also acts as a wider reminder of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ultra-sensitive status. Azerbaijan and Armenia are still at war over Nagorno-Karabakh and only a 1994 UN negotiated ceasefire holds a shaky peace.

There are still almost weekly shoot-outs between the opposing armies and Azerbaijan has pledged to re-take the enclave from Armenia-backed forces.

Ms Grybauskaite has, apparently, acted after a recording of a private conversation between Arturas Zurauskas, Lithuania’ ambassador in Baku, and Renatas Juska, Lithuania’s ambassador in Budapest, surfaced on YouTube in July.

In the recording the men agree that Nagorno-Karabakh should be considered Armenian. They also refer to the enclave by its Armenian name, Artsakh. Azerbaijan stakes its own historical claim to the province.

The incident also serves as a reminder of the increased diplomatic clout that Azerbaijan’s burgeoning energy wealth has now given it.

(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)