The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has raised Azerbaijan’s economic growth forecast for 2024 by 1.5 percentage points to 2.7%.
The “Report” reports on this with reference to the September edition of the “Asian Development Prospects” (ADO) report released today.
The ADB report released in April predicted 1.2% growth for this year.
GDP growth next year is forecast at 2.6%, up one percentage point from the April forecast.
Analysts at the bank say the main drivers of the improvement were growth in the non-oil sector, increased public spending and stronger investment activity.
In the first half of 2024, the non-oil economy grew by 6.9%, while the hydrocarbon sector showed a more modest result – 0.6%. At the same time, a 3.4% increase in gas production offset a 4.9% decrease in oil production. As a result, economic growth accelerated from 0.5% in the first half of 2023 to 4.3% in 2024. In agriculture, on the other hand, growth slowed from 3.4% to 0.2% due to a decrease in the production of agricultural products. The industrial sector showed growth of 0.9%, driven by a 7.4% increase in production in the petrochemical and food industries, offsetting a 1.8% drop in industrial production due to a 3.7% drop in the first half of 2023.
The ADB also notes that a significant increase in investment has led to a doubling of the construction growth rate from 9.2% in the first half of 2023 to 18.4% a year later. Growth in the services sector increased from 1.6% to 6.1%, supported by the development of the transport sector, which showed growth of 15.4%.
AfDB experts expect the positive dynamic to continue until the end of the year, which led to a revision of the forecasts for 2024 and 2025.
Recall that according to the results of 2023, the country’s GDP growth was 1.1%. According to government forecasts, GDP growth is expected to be 4.2% in 2024 and 3.5% in 2025.
