Country Report Azerbaijan May 2011

Outlook for 2011-15: External sector

The current account will stay firmly in surplus throughout the forecast period. We forecast the current-account surplus to average 19.4% of GDP in 2011-15, driven by a substantial trade surplus, as export revenue, which is overwhelmingly derived from the oil sector, will continue to dwarf import spending. Imports for transport, communications and construction will rise, although expenditure on imported consumer goods will be lower than before the crisis. Growth in services imports related to the oil sector will rise in the later years of the forecast period as the second phase of the Shah Deniz project intensifies. After narrowing sharply in 2009 as the contraction in the global economy led to a fall in imported services in the hydrocarbons sector, the services deficit will widen more markedly from 2012 onwards. Nonetheless, the services deficit will be at broadly the same levels as in 2005-08 as foreign investors seek to reduce costs in response to the impact on firms' revenue of the global economic recession in 2009. This will lead to slower growth in the deficits on the services account than at the peak before 2008. Over the forecast period the high cost of developing oilfields and gasfields will keep gross inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) comparatively high, albeit much lower than in the peak years of 2003-04.

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