4.1M tons of transit cargo transported via Azerbaijan

Over the 6 months of this year, the Azerbaijani economy grew by 2.4 percent, with the non-oil sector having grown by 3.2 percent, the non-oil industry by 15.7 percent, commodity circulation by more than 20 percent, non-oil export by 15 percent, and agriculture by 13 percent, said the Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev said, Trend reports.

According to him, over $6 billion of investments have been made in the country's economy, most of which were made in the non-oil sector.

Over the 6 months, foreign exchange reserves reached a record high of $49 billion. Inflation rates are only at 2.5 percent, while household incomes have increased by 6.6 percent.

The minister noted that 4.2 million Azerbaijani citizens were covered by social packages adopted on the initiative of the head of state.

During the aforementioned period, 4.1 million tons of transit cargo was transported through the country. During this period, the volume of cargo passing through the North-South transport corridor amounted to 131,000 tons (an increase of 63 percent).

The volume of transit goods transported through the North-West corridor amounted to 829,000 tons (an increase of 70 percent), while the volume of non-oil goods transported via the East-West corridor amounted to 795,000 tons (an increase of 42.8 percent).

According to the minister, entrepreneurs were allocated up to 50 million manats of soft loans during the aforementioned period. The implementation of these investment projects provides an opportunity to create 1,265 jobs. Some 68 percent of soft loans have been issued to the agricultural sector, 32 percent to industrial production and processing, 44 percent to Azerbaijani regions and 56 percent to Baku.