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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev: â€œIt is important to reduce Azerbaijanâ€™s oil dependence to a minimumâ€

13 February 2009 09:19 (UTC +04:00)

We should increase attention to the establishment of competitive areas of production in order to lower Azerbaijanâ€™s dependence on oil production and oil prices,â€ Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in his interview to ITAR-TASS agency, APA reports. The President said oil brings profit and capital inflow, but has little influence on creation of jobs.
â€œIt is normal that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to the efficient use of oil and gas resources, diversification of the transportation of energy carriers and energy security. We have achieved everything we planned to do, but was also one of our priorities to reduce dependence on oil factor. I think we have also made great improvements in this field, because development of non-oil sector is not less than the development of oil sector. In the past five years, 766,000 jobs have been created in Azerbaijan, 550,000 of them are permanent jobs. Very strong infrastructure has been established in all the regions. The level of poverty has dropped from 49 percent to 13 percent in Azerbaijan in the recent five years. All these show that the social program and economic reforms carried out in our country are effective,â€ he said.