Expert says Azerbaijan should subsidize shipbuilding
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 28, 2002

Baku, 28 January: "The Baku bureau of the Register of Russian Shipping (RRS) includes the entire Azerbaijani fleet, which consists of 599 ships. Of these, 300 ships belong to the Caspian shipping company," the head of the RRS, Dmitriy Shestakov, has told Turan news agency.

He said that number of ships has increased by only five (private ships - editor) over the last two-and-half years. The situation in shipping is getting worse every year. "The Azerbaijani fleet is getting older, and there is neither new shipbuilding nor support vessels in a proper state," Shestakov said. For instance, the average repair of one ship costs 1bn manats [more than 200,000 dollars], while the shipbuilding factory gets only 400m manats [85,000 dollars], which scarcely covers salaries, payment for electricity and so on.

Shestakov said that Azerbaijan can not have a great volume of oil without a modern oil fleet and that the management of SOCAR [State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic] must understand that they should not neglect renovation of the fleet. "Their policy is leasing ships or rigs to foreigners, while the greater part of the fleet is being destroyed. That is why there is a need for shipbuilding (shipping) to be subsidized by the state, as is the case in many countries, because this is a very expensive business. The construction of a small ship costs at least 5m dollars," he said.

[Passage omitted: history of Register of Russian Shipping]

Source: Turan news agency, Baku, in Russian 0900 gmt 28 Jan 02

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.

Azerbaijan registers about 3,000 foreign, joint-stock companies in 2001
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jan 24, 2002

Text of report by Azerbaijani news agency Trend

Baku, 24 January, Trend correspondent F. Kazimov: According to official statistics, 2,921 foreign and joint-stock companies were registered in Azerbaijan as of 1 January 2002, Trend news agency has reported, quoting the figures from the State Statistics Committee. Of this, 1,974 companies are operating with 100 per cent foreign capital, while 947 companies are joint-stock companies.

Forty five foreign companies and 12 joint-stock companies were liquidated in 2001. The number of foreign companies grew by 7.1 per cent (186 companies) and joint-stock companies by 3.5 per cent (45 companies) in our country last year.

According to official statistics, 58,600 enterprises were registered in the country on 1 January 2002. Of this, 22.3 per cent are state enterprises, 4.5 per cent municipal, 68.2 per cent are private companies and 5 per cent are foreign and joint-stock companies. Five hundred and ten state enterprises and 1,092 private enterprises were liquidated last year.

The percentage of enterprises engaged in different areas in Azerbaijan are as follows: agriculture - 18.4 per cent, trade and consumer services - 38.9 per cent, property and various commercial activities - 11 per cent, construction - 8.7 per cent, processing industry - 8.5 per cent and so on.

Source: Trend news agency, Baku, in Russian 1245 gmt 24 Jan 02

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.

POPULATION OF AZERBAIJAN IS OVER 8 MILLION PEOPLE

ANS News, January 22, 2002

Source:Trend

21.01.02--Baku--By the 1 January 2002 population of Azerbaijan amounts to 8,141,000 people. According to State Statistics Committee population has grown by 60,000 people or 0.7%. 4,138,00 people live in cities and 4,003,000 – in villages with women dominating in number. They make up 51% of population or 4,157,000 people. 59% citizens are people capable of working, 32% -- children under 15, and 9% -- the pensioners. According to official data population growth rate decreased last year. Thus, whereas growth was 70.3 per 1000 people in 2000, the same index was 64.3 people in 2001. 41,000 people joined in marriage and 5,400 divorced.

ANS