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World Bank sees 2008 GDP growth at 17.7% in Azerbaijan

08 January 2009 13:30 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev â€“ APA-Economics. Azerbaijanâ€™s GDP is anticipated to drop to 17.7 percent in 2008, from the 25.0 percent pace of 2007, said the World Bank in the Global Economic Prospects 2009.
According to the report, Azerbaijan tops the list of Europe and Central Asia countries in terms of GDP growth rate.

	2005	2006	2007	2008 (proj.)	2009 (proj.)	2010 (proj.z)
Azerbaijan	26.2	34.5	25.0	17.7	10.4	7.8
Belarus	9.4	9.9	8.2	9.2	5.0	5.8
Armenia	13.9	13.3	13.7	9.0	6.4	6.7
Romania	4.1	7.9	6.0	8.6	3.2	5.8
Uzbekistan	7.0	7.3	9.5	8.0	7.0	6.5
Kyrgyzstan	- 0.2	2.7	8.2	6.6	4.2	5.6
Moldova	7.5	4.0	3.0	6.5	4.0	4.0
Albania	5.5	5.0	6.0	6.0	5.0	5.5
Bulgaria	6.2	6.3	6.2	6.0	2.4	6.0
Russia	6.4	7.4	8.1	6.0	3.0	5.0
Ukraine	2.7	7.9	7.7	6.0	- 3.0	4.4
Macedonia	4.1	3.0	5.1	5.5	4.8	5.6
Croatia	4.3	4.8	5.6	3.5	2.3	5.1
Poland	3.6	6.2	6.6	5.4	4.0	4.7
Kazakhstan	9.7	10.7	8.5	4.0	1.9	6.2
Lithuania	7.9	7.7	8.8	4.0	- 0.3	2.0
Georgia	9.6	9.4	12.4	3.5	4.0	6.0
Turkey	8.4	6.9	4.6	3.0	1.7	4.9
Latvia	10.6	12.2	10.3	- 0.8	- 3.5	- 0.7

The report said deterioration in the external environment and the fragile set of current conditions in a large number of European and Central Asian countries suggests the potential for a sharp slowdown in regional GDP growth to 2.7 percent in 2009 from the 5.3 percent advance of 2008. But under assumptions that global credit markets begin to function once more by early to mid-2009, and that growth in OECD centers starts to pull-up at the same time, regional growth is anticipated to firm to 5 percent by 2010. CIS countries outside of Russia are expected to realize a rebound in exports and a pick-up in consumer spending, as growth recovers from 2.8 percent in 2009 to 5.7 percent. And gradual revival in Euro Area demand helps CEE exports pick-up from 2.5 percent gains in 2009 to 7.6 percent by 2010, supporting a, move in GDP from 3.2 percent to 4.7 percent. Lower oil prices will help alleviate a portion of the current account burden in oil importing countries, especially Turkey, and a large number of Central European countries.