Prime Minister Borisov, together with his Azerbaijan’s counterpart Rasizade, inaugurated the first scheduled air service which links Baku and Sofia. The ceremony took place at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport. This direct air service will contribute to the development of business and tourism between the two countries.
The Azerbaijani government does not see any risks for the manat rate, Elman Rustamov, chairman of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, told reporters in Baku today. “Today, Azerbaijan has a floating exchange rate of manat,” he said. “The positive trend is usually formed due to the surplus of the current account of the balance of payments. Today we expect that the current account surplus will amount to about $1.5-2 billion”. “An important question is that how much would the strengthening of manat would be in line with the economic strategy, in particular, export diversification, but so far we do not see such risks”, Rustamov said.
The head of the public-political issues department of Azerbaijani president’s office on Wednesday accused The Washington Post newspaper of lies and deliberate distortion of facts in the media outlet’s article about apartments for reporters. On Monday, the US newspaper published an article titled “In Azerbaijan, some journalists get free apartments. Others get jail cells”. In the article, the news outlet reported about the celebration of “National Press Day” in Baku, during which President Aliyev awarded apartments to hundreds of journalists, and at the same time about the alleged campaign against other journalists. “It is malicious intent and twisted logic to link the measures aimed at the improvement of housing problems of journalists with the cases of people arrested for specific criminal actions. Lies, distortion of facts… these are the features of this article and of this media outlet’s information policy”, Ali Hasanov said, as quoted by the press service.
