Azerbaijan is no longer on the list of poor countries with an average income of two dollars per capita and the World Bank has confirmed it is a country with an upper middle income, said Salim Muslumov, minister of labor and social protection.
"The poverty rate is measured with the WB methodology, according to which a country with a daily income of two dollars per capita is poor. It is seen as extremely poor if the average income is one dollar. Parts of our population were among 2.6 billion poor people across the world in 2003 but now Azerbaijan's population are not among them any more since the average (monthly) per capita income in Azerbaijan is $128," Muslumov said.
In 2000, Azerbaijan joined the UN Millennium Development Goals, a program which plans to cut the number of poor people by half by 2015.
"State programs and socio-economic development projects carried out in Azerbaijan over the recent years have led to a reduction of the poverty rate from 49 percent in 2003 to 5 percent today which is three times below the global poverty rate," Muslumov noted.
He said the minimum wage in Azerbaijan has increased by 11.6 times over the past ten years, while the average daily salary per capita climbed by 5.5 times and the average monthly labor pensions by 9.4 times.
"In case of a sustainable economic development, it is possible to forecast a regular increase in minimum wages to rise up to 60 percent of the average monthly salary in the next years," he said.
The minister went on to say that the pace of economic growth in Azerbaijan rose by 3.4 times over the last ten years, while the incomes of the population saw a 6.5 times increase.
"GDP per capita increased by 8.4 times in Azerbaijan to reach $7,500 over the mentioned period. We plan to increase the GDP share to $8,000 in 2015, while it will stand at $13,000 per capita under the 'Azerbaijan-2020: Vision to Future' program by 2020," he said.
(Azernews.az)
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