Libyan newspaper highlights Azerbaijan`s accomplishments and pre-election situation.

Libyan official newspaper “Fevral” has published an article hailing Azerbaijan`s achievements and highlighting pre-election situation in the country after embassy staffers held a series of meetings with representatives of the Libyan mass media ahead of the presidential election slated for October 9 in Azerbaijan.

Titled “Election Program of the Republic of Azerbaijan”, the article praises reforms carried out in different fields in the country. It draws attention to Azerbaijan`s rich energy resources, saying incomes from oil and gas have effectively been used to develop the non-oil sector, AzerTAc reports.

“Over the past 10 years, Azerbaijan`s real GDP increased 3.4 times and the non-oil sector of the economy increased 2.7 times. By late 2012, the country`s GDP reached almost 54 billion manats against 7.15 billion manats in 2003, the GDP in the non-oil sector amounted to 26.17 billion manats compared to 4.45 billion manats.

Accordingly, the nominal GDP grew 7.6 times and the production of extra cost in the non-oil sector grew 5.9 times.” “Poverty in Azerbaijan dropped from 49 percent in 2001 to 6 percent in 2012. Over the last years Azerbaijan has been developing at a rapid pace in terms of competitiveness. In the latest Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), competitiveness of the country`s economy is ranked 39th out of 144 states. Over a million jobs were created in the country. Strategic currency reserves of Azerbaijan have increased by 2.6 percent compared to the beginning of 2013 to $48 billion and this is sufficient to finance three-year import,” the article says.

The newspaper describes Azerbaijan as a key partner of Europe in the region in energy security.

The article also refers to Azerbaijan`s election as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

It notes that over 3,000 international observers from international organizations, including OSCE, GUAM, CIS, United Nations, Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking countries, Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation and Organization of Islamic Cooperation will monitor the upcoming elections.

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