Azerbaijani Central Bank's foreign exchange reserves reach $9.2 billion

Foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan have reached $9.2 billion.

The CBA head Taleh Kazimov made the statement at today's meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, Industry, and Entrepreneurship, Trend reports.

Besides, according to the bank's forecasts, the country's total GDP is expected to grow by 1.8-2 per cent as of late 2023, while non-oil GDP - by 5.7 per cent.

"The non-oil GDP growth rate will reach 5.7 per cent. In April, the country's GDP grew by 0.1 per cent and non-oil GDP by 3.7 per cent. We are concerned about inflation. The inflation rate in April was 12.8 per cent. The key point here is the rise in food prices. According to the April forecast, annual inflation will be 8.3 per cent at the end of the year. The inflation forecast for January was 7.9 per cent," Kazimov said.

According to him, this April the country's foreign currency reserves increased by 12 per cent to $66 billion, while the CBA reserves increased by 2.2 per cent to $9.2 billion.

Kazimov noted that the loan portfolio of the financial sector reached $20 billion, while the deposit base grew by more than 5 per cent.

"The quality of the loan portfolio in April fell to 3.7 per cent, the level of dollarization decreased to a historical minimum, that is, to 9.9 per cent. The level of dollarisation of individuals' deposit portfolio was 37 per cent," the CBA head said.

He added that the insurance sector saw an increase in premiums and payments: "Insurance premiums rose by 30 per cent and payouts by 33 per cent".

Earlier, the head of the Department of Economic Policy and Industrial Affairs of the Presidential Administration, Natig Amirov, said that Azerbaijan's foreign exchange reserves grew by 41 times to $65.9 billion, in the period from 2003 to April 2023.

"Over the past 20 years, the gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 22 times to 133.8 billion manats ($78.7 billion), and the GDP per capita surged 17.8 times to 13,292 manats ($7,819)" he noted.

"In 20 years, the nominal income of the population rose by 13.7 times to 68.9 billion manats ($40.53 billion), and the average monthly salary climbed by 13.3 times to 839 manats ($493.5)," Amirov said.

As of May 1, the monetary base in Azerbaijan amounted to 17 billion 609.9 million manats ($10 billion).