DEFENSE EXPENDITURES IN AZERBAIJANI BUDGET WORTH 65% OF TOTAL ARMENIAN BUDGET

Regnum News Agency, Russia
Oct 12 2005

On October 11, Azerbaijani Parliament discussed the draft law on
the budget-2006. Presenting the document, Chairman of the Parliament
Committee for Economic Policy, Sattar Safarov noted that this year’s
draft differs from the previous budgets by a considerable growth of
revenues and expenses, by 66.7% and 61.9% accordingly.

According to Chairman of the National Bank of Azerbaijan (NBA) Elman
Rustamov, $650 million from this budget will be spent on defense
improvement. That is approximately 65% of the whole Armenian budget
(that is worth $1 billion). In 2007 defense expenditures will be
equal to the Armenian budget.

According to Rustamov, in 2006 inflation rate will stay at 9%, the
rate of manat will rise because of currency flow in the country. The
GDP is forecast to be at 30.5%, but if the price of per barrel of oil
will rise from $40 to $50, the GDP growth would reach 40%. Chairman
of NBA also said that equity market of Azerbaijan is only 0,4% of GDP
(for comparison, in Russia it is 18%, and 26% in Kazakhstan).