Azerbaijan continues steps to bring external debt to 10 pct of GDP - Finance Minister

By Trend

Work continues to bring the ratio of external debt to GDP of Azerbaijan to 10 percent, Azerbaijani Finance Minister Samir Sharifov said on April 12 at a meeting chaired by President Ilham Aliyev, dedicated to the results of the first quarter of this year, Trend reports.

"Distinguished Mr. President, I would like to note that the implementation continues of the medium and long-term strategy for public debt management in the Republic of Azerbaijan, approved by your Order dated 24 August 2018. Work to implement the goal you set before us to reduce the ratio of foreign debt to GDP to 10 percent also continues. One of the important issues in this direction is to gradually reduce the total public debt, i.e. foreign and domestic public debt in foreign currency and, taking into account this direction, to increase the share of domestic debt in the debt portfolio. When the strategy was adopted, this ratio was 94 percent, i.e. 94 percent was the share of foreign public debt. At present, it has been reduced by 82 percent. This is due to the fact that the share of domestic debt has increased. To develop domestic public debt, i.e. domestic financial markets, we are offering more government securities and government bonds to the market, and since the adoption of the strategy, this debt has increased by 3.2 percent. At present, it is 2.5 billion manats, and the program is underway," the minister said.