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Azerbaijan drafts its 2027 to 2030 strategy on a 1.2% year, with $91 billion in reserve, 5.6% of GDP in debt and 8.8 billion manat for defence

The drafts of a new development strategy for 2027 to 2030 and of the second State Programme of the Great Return have been discussed at the Economic Council and presented to President Aliyev, Report.az wrote on Thursday at 15:44, quoting prime minister Ali Asadov, and the numbers around them describe the year the strategy is written in: growth of 1.2% in January to August, 2.1% outside oil and gas and a fall of 0.8% inside it, strategic currency reserves of about $91 billion, external state debt of $4.5 billion or 5.6% of projected GDP, a trade surplus above $10 billion in 8 months and inflation of 5.7%, with 5.3% forecast for 2027. Approval is expected in the coming months, Report.az wrote.

By CAW Editorial24 September 2026
Bar chart of Azerbaijan's 2026 growth on three counts, the government's eight-month print of 1.2 in amber beside the ADB's 1.6 and the EBRD's 2.0, with 2027 bars of 1.8 and 2.5.

The forecasters read the same year 2 ways. On Wednesday the ADB cut Azerbaijan’s 2026 growth to 1.6% because the oil sector contracted; on Thursday the EBRD wrote 2.0% for 2026 and 2.5% for 2027, in Report.az’s rendering of the bank’s text at 09:00: the economy, after a slowdown at the start of the year, has resumed moderate growth driven by the non-oil sectors, and its prospects remain sensitive to hydrocarbon prices and output volumes. The government’s own 8-month print of 1.2% sits below both banks, and the outgoing strategy’s average of 5.1% a year outside oil sits above everything now on the table. With $91 billion in reserve and debt at 5.6% of output, the cushion is the policy.

The budget discussed the same afternoon is a budget of the cushion. Asadov told the cabinet’s discussion of the 2027 draft that defence and national security will again be “one of the largest expenditures of the state budget”, at 8.8 billion manat or 21% of spending, APA reported at 15:31, and that the liberated territories get 3.4 billion manat next year after more than 25 billion since 2020, the money whose next book is the Great Return’s second programme.

With $91 billion in reserve and debt at 5.6% of output, the cushion is the policy.

The barrel is doing what the wells are not. Azeri Light on Thursday’s Trend print rose $3.69 to $121.43 a barrel at Augusta, and Dated Brent fell $3.43 to $119.86, so the Azerbaijani grade priced above the North Sea benchmark on the day; the 2026 budget was written at $65. An oil and gas sector that shrank 0.8% in 8 months while the day’s price ran $56 over the budget’s assumption is the arithmetic behind a $10 billion surplus in a 1.2% year.

The growth the strategy is meant to find is being pitched abroad as a route. At the US-hosted event “Prosperity Through Peace: Investing in the Trans-Caspian Trade Route and TRIPP” in New York on Wednesday night, foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov said TRIPP’s potential goes beyond transport, into energy links and supply chains, and named the integrated hub of the Baku port and the Alat free economic zone and the transport road maps with Kazakhstan, Turkey and Georgia, Minval reported at 01:07 Baku time; Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan sat on the same panel with Steve Witkoff and Brendan Hanrahan. A strategy drafted at 1.2% is a document about where a surplus goes: the Great Return, the army, the route. The surplus pays for all 3 this year. Growth is what 2030 will need, and none of Thursday’s numbers is written for it.

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