The energy-rich South Caucasus republic carried out foreign trade operations worth $11.6 billion in the reporting period, of which exports accounted for 54.8% and imports 45.2%, Novosti-Azerbaijan news agency said Monday citing the country's top statistics body.

Compared with 2005, exports grew 46% in 2006 and imports expanded 25%, the agency said.

The European Union accounted for 45.3% of Azerbaijan's export/import operations in the reporting year, while countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose association of former Soviet republics, accounted for 26%, and other countries for 28.7%, the agency said. RIA Novosti