GDP in 2019

Over the five months of this year, gross domestic product was made in Azerbaijan for a total of 30.6 billion manat ($ 18 billion), which is 2.2% more than in the comparable period of 2018, the State Statistics Committee reports.

For the first time in many years, the share of taxes on goods produced in the country and imports reached 9.3%. For comparison, we note that for the same period last year, this figure was 7%. The share of industry in the structure of GDP over the five months of this year was 46%, trade - 9.9%, transport - 6.4%, construction - 5.9%, agriculture - 3.7%, etc.

Let's put some math...

18/5=3.6 is monthly average so, for 2019 our expectation is 3.6x12= $ 43.2 bln

GDP per capita 4.32 thousands whereas it was 7.2 in 2010s. This is reality where we stand...

Let's dig deeper, here is update:

Over the five months of this year, the surplus on foreign trade operations in Azerbaijan amounted to 2,780.9 million USD, which is 20.9% less than in the comparable period of 2018, the State Customs Committee said.

The volume of import-export operations in January-May of this year with 174 countries of the world amounted to $ 14,449.2 million, which is 28.7% more than in the same period of 2018. During this period, imports of goods ($ 5,834.1 million) increased by 51.3%. The growth of import indicators is also associated with the intensification of investment activities of the State Oil Fund. Over the specified period the Fund bought gold bars worth $ 1.4 billion. Due to this and other factors, the share of the public sector in the import structure increased from 15.5% ($ 598.3 million) to 39.7% ($ 2,315.8 million).

Do we really have 2.2% growth???