Guardian: Azerbaijan is one of strongest performing economies in post-Soviet space

Azerbaijan's oil dividend makes it one of the strongest performing economies in the post-Soviet space, and it is one of the few former Soviet republics with a growing population, the British Guardian reported in its article "End of the USSR: visualising how the former Soviet countries are doing, 20 years on".

Armenia and Georgia have both seen incipient growth through the 2000s rudely interrupted by the global recession of 2008/09, the paper reports.

"The frozen conflicts of Nagorno-Karabakh ( ) and Abkhazia have exacted a political and economic price, and in Georgia's case a fractured relationship with its dominant northern neighbour Russia has resulted in the only war between former Soviet republics (2008)," the paper reports.

The article noted that Armenia suffers from the worst unemployment of all 15 republics, and democratic breakthroughs have been few.

Still, life expectancy has risen sharply across the region, and infant mortality rates have been reduced impressively.


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