Azerbaijan intends to turn oil and gas into assets that will provide constant flow of income

The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAR) was established to manage oil and gas incomes of Azerbaijan as a sovereign wealth fund, and today it manages the fund, which is equal to about a half of the Azerbaijan's GDP, and it is becoming a major international investor. Shahmar Movsumov, the SOFAR’s CEO, told in an interview, published in The Independent and the Die Welt, about the Fund's role in maintaining macroeconomic stability, its vast international portfolio of investments and its way of the economic diversification.

Q- Could you give us an overview of SOFAR and its activities?

A- The creation of SOFAR is an integral component of the national oil strategy determined by the national leader, Heydar Aliyev. The oil strategy focuses on three main components: the first one is the fact that Azerbaijan didn’t have opportunities -  technical or financial – to explore its hydrocarbons at the early stages of our independence in the early 90s. The  strategic step to invite  the largest international oil companies in Azerbaijan was taken – they brought their technologies and finance. In 1994, so-called "contract of the century" was signed, and the development of the oil industry on the sea started.