Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev signed a decree Saturday setting up a public Oil Fund at the insistence of international financial organisations, the presidential press service told AFP.
"The fund will be used for the country's social and economic progress and solving the most important national problems, as well as financing construction and repairs of strategic facilities," the decree read.
Profits from oil and natural gas sales, as well as revenues from Azerbaijan's 20 contracts with foreign companies such as Exxon-Mobil, BP Amoco, Chevron and others, will contribute to the fund, the press service said.
According to the decree, the fund's current assets of some $265 million must be transferred to a special account in Azerbaijan's national bank before January 5, 2001.
The fund was supposed to have been set up a year ago, and the delay could spell serious problems for Azerbaijan's state budget.
Sources in Azeri financial circles told AFP that international financial organisations had warned Baku to stand by its obligation to set up the fund, threatening otherwise to withhold the World Bank's next loan to the former Soviet republic. The $38-million loan is already included in the budget's revenue articles.
International experts think that creating such a fund could keep Azerbaijan from becoming completely dependent on its oil industry.—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse.
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
