Azerbaijan : Public Expenditure Review
Azerbaijan has experienced robust economic growth during the past seven years, aided by its oil sector development. Nevertheless, poverty is still pervasive and social indicators have deteriorated. The oil and gas windfall will be of undoubted bene...
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Format: | Public Expenditure Review |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/04/2274988/azerbaijan-public-expenditure-review http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13825 |
Summary: | Azerbaijan has experienced robust
economic growth during the past seven years, aided by its
oil sector development. Nevertheless, poverty is still
pervasive and social indicators have deteriorated. The oil
and gas windfall will be of undoubted benefit to the country
and its citizens if combined with a very careful
macroeconomic policy and fiscal stance, as well as steadfast
implementation of the structural reform program and poverty
reduction strategy. The experience of other resource rich
countries has often been disappointing and left large strata
of the population in continued poverty. The main challenge
for Azerbaijan is to design and implement a policy agenda
that leads to poverty reduction and improves incomes as well
as equity, while maintaining macroeconomic and financial
stability. This Public Expenditure Review (PER) focuses on
the public expenditure part of the overall policy agenda.
Its main objective is to provide a framework for more
efficient use of public resources and more effective poverty
reduction efforts. This framework is designed to be
consistent with the maintenance of overall macroeconomic
stability and with sustainable economic growth in the
non-oil sector. The macroeconomic achievements over the past
five years have been encouraging. Continuing these
achievements, however, may present a greater challenge to
the authorities in the coming decade. The relatively speedy
accumulation of fiscal revenues related to the oil and gas
windfall will create heavy spending pressures. Using these
funds unwisely or out of the context of a sound vision of
the country's sustainable economic development path
will create macroeconomic instabilities, inefficient and
non-competitive non-oil activities, or both. The basic
conclusion and simple recommendation of this PER is that
Azerbaijan follow a fiscal strategy consistent with
sustainable development of the non-oil sector, while over
time mending institutional weaknesses and structural
deficiencies, and investing in its people. |
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