Agence France Presse
November 30, 2012 Friday 12:43 PM GMT
Azerbaijan boosts defence spending in 2013
BAKU, Nov 30 2012
Azerbaijan’s parliament approved on Friday a 2013 budget which
forecasts slowing growth and high inflation but also boosts defence
spending amid a military standoff with neighbour Armenia.
The budget forecasts that the oil-rich Caucasus country’s gross
domestic product will grow by 5.3 percent next year against expected
5.7-percent growth rate in 2012.
Inflation is forecast at 5.7 percent.
The latest figures released by the World Bank offer even less
optimistic picture — predicting the country’s economy would only grow
by 3.5 percent in 2013.
Defence and military spending will rise by 0.9 percent to over 1.5
billion Azerbaijani manats ($1.9 billion/1.4 billion euros), amid the
continuing conflict with Armenia over disputed region of Nagorny
Karabakh.
Total budget revenues for 2013 are predicted to be 19.1 billion manats
($24.3 billion, 18.7 billion euros), with expenditure at 19.8 billion
manats ($25.2 billion, 19.4 billion euros) or 35.3 percent of GDP.
A largely Muslim country of 9.1 million people strategically located
between Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan is a key partner in projects
delivering energy from the Caspian Sea area to the West via pipelines
through Turkey, bypassing Russia.
It is locked in a long-simmering conflict with Armenia over Karabakh,
where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control
during a war in the 1990s that left some 30,000 dead, and no peace
deal has yet been signed.
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