Low oil prices are not reason to panic in Azerbaijan - Deutsche Welle

  15 January 2015    Read: 1390
Low oil prices are not reason to panic in Azerbaijan - Deutsche Welle
Germany`s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published an article which said that the low oil prices are not the number one problem for Azerbaijan, as it is for the other countries of the region.
The daily reports from the oil markets are not regarded with joy, at the same time people there are not panicking, Deutsche Welle said.

“This is especially evident in how different currencies reacted to the drop in oil prices,” the executive director and board member of the German-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce Florian Schroeder said. “The Russian ruble has lost 40 percent of its value in 2014 against the dollar and continues to fall, accelerating inflation. And what about the Azerbaijani manat? Its value has actually been maintained, even grown in relation to the euro.”

He said that the Azerbaijani situation is very different from the Russian one, where one of the main reasons was the depreciation of the ruble, outflow of capital and maintenance of foreign investors.

“In Azerbaijan there is nothing like that,” Schroeder said.

Baku today demonstrates a high-growth economy, he said.

But even in the most pessimistic scenario, Azerbaijan cannot worry too much about its macroeconomic stability, said the article.

“This is one of the countries with the lowest debt per capita,” Florian Schroeder said. “There are reserves in the Oil Fund (SOFAZ), and the Central Bank. I interpret the figures that are available so that the country can, if we take the basis of current conditions at a price of $50 per barrel, survive for 10 years.”

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