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Economy Azerbaijan

Economy - overview:
Azerbaijan's number one export is oil. Azerbaijan's oil production
declined through 1997, but has registered an increase every year
since. Negotiation of production-sharing arrangements (PSAs) with
foreign firms, which have thus far committed $60 billion to
long-term oilfield development, should generate the funds needed to
spur future industrial development. Oil production under the first
of these PSAs, with the Azerbaijan International Operating Company,
began in November 1997. A consortium of Western oil companies began
pumping 1 million barrels a day from a large offshore field in early
2006, through a $4 billion pipeline it built from Baku to Turkey's
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Economists estimate that by 2010
revenues from this project will double the country's current GDP.
Azerbaijan shares all the formidable problems of the former Soviet
republics in making the transition from a command to a market
economy, but its considerable energy resources brighten its
long-term prospects. Baku has only recently begun making progress on
economic reform, and old economic ties and structures are slowly
being replaced. Several other obstacles impede Azerbaijan's economic
progress: the need for stepped up foreign investment in the
non-energy sector, the continuing conflict with Armenia over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region, and the pervasive corruption. Trade with
Russia and the other former Soviet republics is declining in
importance while trade is building with Turkey and the nations of
Europe. Long-term prospects will depend on world oil prices, the
location of new pipelines in the region, and Azerbaijan's ability to
manage its oil wealth.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$58.1 billion (2006 est.)

GDP (official exchange rate):
$14.05 billion (2006 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:
32.5% (2006 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):
$7,300 (2006 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 14.1%
industry: 45.7%
services: 40.2% (2002 est.)

Labor force:
5.191 million (2006 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:
agriculture: 41%
industry: 7%
services: 52% (2001)

Unemployment rate:
1.2% official rat