Economic Situation And Plans For Future Economic Growth

a. Primary National Interest: Republic of Azerbaijan works to ensure sustained economic growth by protecting and exploiting proven oil reserves from deepwater Caspian Basin oilfields and its transport to growing western markets via the Baku-Tblilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil and associated South Caucasus (SCP) gas pipeline. Azerbaijan leverages this energy development to build strategic partnerships & ensure international attention for its independence, and attempt to influence attitudes toward the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict.

1. BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION. The Republic of Azerbaijan is continuing efforts to sustain and increase its economic growth by protecting proven oil reserves from deep water Caspian Basin oilfields and securing its transport to western markets. Azerbaijan uses this energy development to build strategic partnerships and attract international attention in favor of its independence. Since 2017 the U.S. has provided support to Azerbaijan through various U.S. Army Reserve engineer units participation in stability related construction efforts directed at upgrading the Azerbaijani infrastructure to allow for better more secure transport of energy reserves.

Several oil-countries have been facing economic and political turbulence as a result of the crash in oil prices, and there is disagreement among OPEC as how to handle the situation. (Krauss) While this is happening, America’s oil production continues to rise, as it inches closer to becoming an energy superpower in production and consumption; and countries that depend on their oil exports face recession.

This ties in with some recent reports that Kazakhstan has one of the fastest growing economies in the world (Robinson, 2015). Hugely because of the oil reserves found in the country, Kazakhstan has benefited from averaging 8% growth rates since 2000 for their GDP and has given significant rise to the per capita income (International Monetary Fund, 2013, p. 3). These large oil reserves have given many countries great interest in the country and continue to provide money to this region to help ensure their own interests are secure in regards to providing oil for their own

Venezuela was once Latin America’s richest country because of its production of oil. Internationally, Venezuela was positioned ahead of Saudi Arabia as a country who had the largest oil reserves because the Orinoco belt contained an estimated 1.2 trillion barrels of oil. After the oil prices climbed to $100/bbl. in 2007, former President Hugo Chavez took this as an opportunity to seek more revenue which the government was using to fund the welfare programs it offers its citizens such as food, housing and services for the elderly that are also beneficial to refugees. However, when oil prices plummeted to barely $50/bbl., Venezuela’s oil production fell to 2.6 million BPD, which is a more than 20% decrease than average. This economic crisis lead

Venezuela is one of the top ten producers of oil in the world and has become dependent on the country's primary export product. Although Venezuela possesses a lot of power due to its oil production for the international market, the Venezuelan economy is drastically affected by the world market's demand and price. A common theme in Venezuelan economic development has been the call to “sow the petroleum,” meaning to use the revenues and comparative advantages that petroleum brings to support government programs and other sectors of the economy. Since oil became the nation's number one export in 1925, until international petroleum prices plummeted in 1986 (a period during most of which Venezuela was the world's leading exporter), the nation was blessed by nearly steady economic growth (Ellner 7). Any decline in global commodity prices, as in the 1990s, places the government under stress

The government component of the GDP accounts for the central government expenditure in national defense and non-defense, as well as State and local government’s expenditure estimates. Government purchases of goods and services are a compensation of government employees

The oil-rich Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, located on the northern coast of South America, was for many decades considered among the wealthiest nations in the entire continent. While having the largest proven oil reserves in the world has often proved a tremendous boon for Venezuela, the very black gold that has been the cause of its success has also proven to repeatedly be its kryptonite. Over half of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product stems from petroleum exports – which equates to approximately 95% of total exports. It is really not too hard to imagine what drastic consequences shifts in global oil prices could have on the economy.

Iran is the second most noticeable economy in the Middle East and North Africa region after Saudi Arabia, with a run of the mill Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2016 of US$412.2 billion. It in like way has the second most vital masses of the area after Egypt, with a respected 78.8 million people in 2015. Iran 's economy is depicted by the hydrocarbon piece, creating and affiliations, areas, and a detectable state closeness in social occasion and money related affiliations. Iran positions second on the planet in oil gas stores and fourth in indicated grungy oil spares. Monetary activity and government benefit still depend to an epic degree on oil occupations and thusly remain uncertain.

High flying oil price benefited oil producing countries past 5 years until recent petroleum price plunge. Russian was the one of beneficiaries who has enjoyed the high oil price. The Russian economy stabilized without much of restructuring the economic system or economic growth by developing new industry. High oil price created budget surpluses and keep Russian economy afloat; However, increase of the US oil production, oil price war between Saudi and Kuwait, debilitating European economy, and decreasing oil consumption in Asia contributed to drive oil price down quickly and substantially. Russian GDP signals that its economy gets pounded and affected hardest among major oil exporters. The Russian budget has been in balance with small portion of public debt in comparison to national GDP. Falling price of petroleum drastically reshaped the Russian economy. Financial forecasts and analysis predict that economic recession could come back to Russia. Crumbling Russian ruble and dwindling exports slashed 2014 Russian GDP, and its GDP will fall lower than Spain or South Korea. Without serious police changes or development of technology, already battling Russian economy will be much worse place than 2014. The Russian economy suffers from three severe blows: debilitating structural policies and strict financial sanctions from the West, and continually falling oil price.

The oil industry is one of great power that countries are invest in. Russia is one of the leading contenders in producing oil and exports the goods to various countries. With great resources comes great strength. Oil is of the utmost important to every country therefore, Russia has an upper hand in some respects. Moreover, the history behind the oil pipelines and how Russia connects to different countries allows for insight into the power they withhold politically and economically, and on the improvements that need to be made to continue growth in this industry.

Generally, economic development in Azerbaijan has been slower than most development economists would have anticipated, considering the fact that when compared to many other developing countries in Africa, Azerbaijan is a

The Arab World has undergone various changes that have characterised its history in the past century. One of these changes have been rapid economic development where many of these countries have discovered mineral deposits, especially oil, making them some of the major distributors of this rare form of energy (Moussa 56). The economic development of these countries was slowed down by their immature democracies that allowed totalitarian regimes to rise into power and abuse this power to amass wealth. Most of the regimes that have existed in many countries in the Arab world in the past one hundred years have received criticisms especially on issues concerning accountability, constitutionalism, social justice and poor human rights track records. During the first decade of the 21st century, the world experienced an oil crisis whose causes are still unknown to date and many of these countries were affected because it interfered with the supply and demand chains of oil, which is their major source of income, leading to economic woes. This saw these economies experience inflation and unemployment that affected the lives of the people.

Sudan’s economy was agricultural-led economy before the production of crude oil. Agricultural sector had a higher share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) almost 48% of the GDP during that period and employed approximately 80% of the labour force (BBC, 2013). However, the discovery of the crude oil and the advent of crude oil exportation in the third quarter of 1999 caused a notable change in Sudan’s economic structure. In 2008, Oil export earnings constituted 95% of the total export proceeds, leading to crude oil revenues contributing 60% of the total government revenues (International Monetary Fund, 2009). Since then, the economy became dependant on crude oil revenues to finance government budget and provided the required foreign exchange to pay imports bill. During the period 2000 – 2011, Sudan witnessed a higher growth rate of its Gross Domestic Product, driven mainly by the oil sector (World Bank, 2009). This situation has exposed the economy to the negative effects of fluctuations in oil prices in the global markets. It is worth noting that during the period under investigation Sudan was a net oil exporter, this manifested in the quantities of crude oil produced compared to the domestic consumption. That is, crude oil supply outweighed domestic demand.

Classified by the World Bank as an upper middle income country, Algeria’s economy is primarily dominated by state-entities although the country began opening up the economy to both foreign and private domestic participation in the mid-1990s.After posting low growth during the civil wars in the 1990s, the Algerian economy grew at an average of 2.72% over the past two decades, mainly attributed to hydrocarbon exports on which the economy is heavily reliant upon.