Could the economy of Azerbaijan fall into the middle-income trap?

The government of Azerbaijan predicts a 1.7 percent decrease in the country's oil and gas sector and a 4.6 percent increase in the non-oil and gas sector in 2024, which means a 2.4 percent increase in GDP in the base scenario. This is lower than both global and regional economic growth forecasts. So, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the global economy will grow by 2.9 percent in 2024. Director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia Department, Jihad Azour, said 1 in the briefing held during the spring meetings that the economic growth in the Caucasus and Central Asia is estimated to be 3.9 percent in 2024 and 4.8 percent in 2025. It should be recalled that the government of Azerbaijan predicted economic growth of 2.7 percent for the current year in the 2023 budget project, but at the end of the year, the economic growth was 1.1 percent2. According to World Bank forecasts on June 2024, the lowest GDP growth rates in the CİS region for the next 3 years are in Russia (2.9%, 1.4%, 1.1%) and Azerbaijan (2.3%, 2.3%, 2.4%). As can be seen, there are World Bank predictions 3 that in 2024 and next 3 years, Azerbaijan will lag far behind not only the regional but also the global economic growth rate.

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