Fitch Solutions improves Azerbaijan's economic growth forecast

Real GDP growth data from the first eight months of 2024 show surprisingly strong activity, prompting an upward revision to Fitch Solutions’ full-year forecast from 2.5% to 3.1%, this was stated in a country report by Fitch Solutions (FS), a company belonging to Fitch Group, News.az reports.

Fitch Solutions states that real GDP growth data from the first eight months of 2024 show surprisingly strong activity: “Data released on September 11 showed that the Azerbaijani economy expanded by 4.3% y-o-y over January-August 2024. We estimated that GDP growth for August came in at between 2.7-3.4%. The non-oil economy was an important driver of growth over this period, with value-added in this segment of the economy increasing 7.0% vs. just 0.2% for the hydrocarbons sector. Further non-oil exports rose to USD 2.2 bln in the first eight months of the year. The non-oil economy will likely make a larger contribution to headline GDP growth in 2024, as it did in 2023. We had expected growth to begin slowing earlier in 2024 hence a previous, lower full-year forecast of 2.5%. Now, we expect the economy to grow by 3.1% in 2024. This revision takes our forecasts above the IMF's forecast of 2024 growth at 2.4% and the World Bank's forecasts of 2.3% growth.”

News.Az