UN General Assembly
2017

Azerbaijan has made significant progress in social and economic development. Our economy has more than tripled since 2004, and we have created more than 1.6 million jobs, keeping our unemployment level one of the lowest in the world at 5 per cent. We have prioritized poverty reduction; our poverty levels have gone from more than 40 per cent in 2004 to 5 or 6 per cent. Our hard-currency reserves are equal to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and our State’s foreign debt is less than 20 per cent of GDP. In 2009 Azerbaijan was named leading reformer of the world in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. The Davos World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report for 2016-2017 ranked Azerbaijan thirty-seventh of 138 countries. In 2015, Azerbaijan received the South-South Award in recognition of its outstanding achievements in implementing the Millennium Development Goals, and since 2010 has been classified as a country with high human development. Our rapid development of our space industry has enabled Azerbaijan to join the world’s space club with Azerspace and Azersky, its two telecommunication and field observation satellites, with a third, Azerspace-2, to be launched soon.