Cabinet of Ministers mull draft budget package for 2016

/By AzerNews/

By Aynur Karimova

Azerbaijan's Cabinet of Ministers discussed a budget package for 2016 under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Artur Rasizade on September 1.

Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Rasizade said that the draft state budget for 2016 was developed with respect to the economic achievements of Azerbaijan.

Special attention was paid to constantly improving the wellbeing of the population of the country, to ensure the country’s national defense strength and national security and to develop the non-oil sector.

Following the discussions, it was decided to submit the budget package to the Azerbaijani president.

A source in the government told Trend that the deficit of Azerbaijan’s 2015-state budget amounted to 595.7 million manats ($568.47 million) in the first seven months of 2015, while there was a budget surplus of 774 million manats ($738.6 million) in the same period of last year.

The state budget is in deficit for the fifth month in a row.

During the first seven months of 2015, state revenues amounted to 9.38 billion manats ($8.95 billion), which is 15.4 percent less than the same period of 2014.

Budget expenditures amounted to 9.97 billion manats ($9.51 billion), decreasing by 3.3 percent from the last year's indices.

Some 44.1 percent or 4.4 billion manats ($4.2 billion) of the budget expenditures accounted for expenditures associated with economic activity, which is 5.3 percent or 243.6 million manats ($232.4 million) less than the same period of last year.

The official exchange rate on September 1 was 1.0479 AZN/USD.