President Aliyev made the remarks at “The New Energy Equation” session held as part of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The head of state noted that it was a bit unnatural.
“1 manat used to be equal to 1.3 dollar. The first devaluation made manat equal to dollar. The second devaluation was somewhat triggered by the drop in value of the national currencies of neighbor countries. Because of this reason, our products fell short of competitiveness. This became yet another burden on our budget. We are trying to resist as hard as we can. Even if we were going to lose a little bit of our national bank reserves, we had to take these actions. For this reason, a number of concerns arose among the population because that had an immediate effect on the prices of imported products. We still continue to be a country dependent on foreign market with regard to certain products. Our people were unprepared to the rising of prices. But this stage is over already. I think economic development is going to be sustainable in Azerbaijan. Our economy used to be one of the world’s fastest-growing economies — 300% revenue over the past decade. This is a big figure. But the cycle is going down now. Nevertheless, I think our current reserves will help manage this situation,” said the president.
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