JULY 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three months before a presidential election, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev gave 155 journalists apartments in a new Baku housing block. Critics of the president said the move was a crude effort to manipulate the media.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The number of people using the internet in Azerbaijan has doubled in the last five years, local media reported quoted the information ministry. Officials said roughly 70% of the population now use the internet. Internet accessibility is an important indicator of economic and political development.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has given Azerbaijan’s AccessBank credit worth $50m media reported. AccessBank, set up in 2002, operates dozens of branches in Azerbaijan’s regions and gives loans to small and medium-sized businesses. AccessBank’s debt portfolio for agriculture businesses has grown in the last few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has been on something of a spending spree. Whether through SOFAZ, the state’s oil fund, or through SOCAR, the state energy company, Azerbaijan’s government has spent millions of dollars on overseas investments.
These included properties in some of the world’s most expensive cities — SOFAZ bought an office block in London’s St James’ for $286m in 2012, then spent $180m on property in Paris and $133m on a building in Moscow — as well as large currency deals and gold purchases.
Property prices in London and Paris are soaring and gold is seen as a sensible long-term bet so these appear solid investments. Azerbaijan’s latest investment, though, strikes an off-beat cord.
Azerbaijani and Russian news website reported comments made in Moscow by the visiting PM of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, on July 12. He said SOCAR had agreed to spend 500m euro building a new luxury resort on Montenegro’s attractive Adriatic coast.
Various websites have since reported that two private companies, Triangle Investments and Developments Limited and Azmont Investments LLC, will pursue the project on behalf of SOCAR.
For most countries, spending 500m euro on building a luxury resort in Montenegro is a risky investment choice.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The proportion of bad loans in Azerbaijan will drop to 11% from 14% within the next 12 – 18 months, the ratings agency Moody’s said in a new report on the Azerbaijani banking sector. Moody’s regarded bad loans as those overdue by more than 90 days. It gave an upbeat assessment of Azerbaijan’s banking sector and said that real GDP would rise by 3.5% this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan produced 21.8m tonnes of oil in the first half of 2013, a 1.8% drop compared to the same period in 2012, media reported quoting official statistics.
Despite the drop, this is actually a reasonable success. The fall between Jan.-June 2012 and Jan.-June 2011 was 7.2%. This output drop had become a major problem not only to Azerbaijan’s economy, which is reliant on energy sales, but also to the country’s prestige. So much so, in fact, that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stepped in.
Last year Mr Aliyev publicly criticised British energy company BP for not producing enough oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) field in the Caspian Sea. This is Azerbaijan’s largest oil producing project and central to its future earnings.
BP now seems to have made good on their pledge to halt ACG’s output decline. Its production in the first half of the year stabilised and averaged 666,000 barrels per day, media quoted BP’s regional manager Gordon Birrell as saying. This is around 70% of Azerbaijan’s daily total.
The oil boom years for Azerbaijan are, if not waning, slightly diminishing. After Russia and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan is the largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union but total production has slipped nearly 16% from 51m tonnes in 2010 to 43m tonnes last year. There is still plenty of oil for Azerbaijan to produce but gas is seen as the next big thing.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Overall consumer prices in Azerbaijan fell 1.1% in June, according to the official statistics agency. Food prices dropped by 2.6%, driving the fall. This is the second consecutive month that the consumer price index in Azerbaijan has fallen. In May prices dropped by 0.4%.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Underling their close relations, Azerbaijan and Turkey have held joint military exercises, media reported. Azerbaijan and Turkey have signed a series of military agreements since 1992, including the joint manufacturing of long-range missiles.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a press conference in Baku, Iran’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Mohsen Pak Ayin, said he hoped the Aslanduz border crossing would re-open later this year. There are currently five border crossings open between Iran and Azerbaijan. Relations have been strained between the neighbours over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan Airlines plans to start a flight to Beijing from Baku in September, media reported. This will be the first direct flight connecting the Azerbaijani and Chinese capitals and could potentially bring more Chinese business to Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)