Foreign investment on increasing pace in Azerbaijan

By AzerNews

Foreign capital attracted to the Azerbaijani economy in 2012 amounted to $10.59 billion, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) reported. The country saw a 30.6 percent increase in the volume of foreign capital.

According to the balance of payments issued by the CBA, the total amount of foreign capital in the country in the form of direct investments rose by 19 percent to $5.3 billion. The share of the oil and gas sector stood at 81.1 percent.

The investments were mainly directed to finance the work carried out in the territory of Azerbaijan, particularly as part of the oil and gas projects on the part of BP Exploration Ltd at the Shah Deniz gas field and the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) on the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields.

Azerbaijan is an important current and future supplier of both oil and natural gas. The ACG and Shah Deniz are the country's largest hydrocarbon deposits, which are located in the Caspian Sea.

The country received $2 million in bonuses for oil contracts in 2012, against $20 million in 2011.

According to the CBA estimates, the volume of direct investments attracted to the non-oil sector totaled $999.4 million, representing 18.9 percent of the total amount.

Earlier the State Statistics Committee reported that in February 2013 direct investments in the oil sector of Azerbaijan soared 2.1-fold compared to January 2013 and reached 44.4 percent of the total investments.

In Jan.-Feb. 2013, oil investments made up 41.8 percent of the total investments and non-oil investments 58.2 percent.

The Committee said that in Jan.-Feb. 702.2 million manats were invested in the oil sector and 977.9 million manats in the non-oil sector.

Overall investments in the country's economy in Jan.-Feb. amounted to 1.68 bln manats.