sion: Ambassador Richard D. KAUZLARICH
embassy: Azadliq Prospect 83, Baku
mailing address: use embassy street address
telephone: [9] (9412) 96-00-19, 98-03-37
FAX: [9] (9412) 98-37-55

Flag: three equal horizontal bands of blue (top), red, and green; a
crescent and eight-pointed star in white are centered in red band

@Azerbaijan:Economy

Overview: Azerbaijan is less developed industrially than either
Armenia or Georgia, the other Transcaucasian states. It resembles the
Central Asian states in its majority nominally Muslim population, high
structural unemployment, and low standard of living. The economy's
most prominent products are oil, cotton, and gas. Production from the
Caspian oil and gas field has been in decline for several years, but
the November 1994 ratification of the $7.5 billion oil deal with a
consortium of Western companies should generate the funds needed to
spur future industrial development. Azerbaijan accounted for 1.5% to
2% of the capital stock and output of the former Soviet Union.
Azerbaijan shares all the formidable problems of the ex-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 have yet to be replaced.

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $13.8 billion (1994
estimate as extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1992)

National product real growth rate: -22% (1994 est.)

National product per capita: $1,790 (1994 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 28% monthly average (1994)

Unemployment rate: 0.9% includes officially registered unemployed;
also large numbers of other unemployed and underemployed workers
(December 1994)

Budget:
revenues: $167.5 million
expenditures: $234.6 million, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1994)

Exports: $366 million to non-FSU countries (f.o.b., 1994)
commodities: oil and gas, chemicals, oilfield equipment, textiles,
cotton (1991)
partners: mostly CIS and European countries

Imports: $296 million from non-FSU countries (c.i.f., 1994)
commodities: machinery and parts, consumer durables, foodstuffs,
textiles (1991)
partners: European countries

External debt: $NA

Industrial production: growth rate -25% (1994)

Electricity:
capacity: 4,900,000 kW
production: 17.5 billion kWh