Azeri Foreign Direct Investment Grows 27% in First Half of Year

Foreign direct investment in Azerbaijan rose 27 percent in the first half of the year from a year earlier, reaching $2.2 billion, according to the State Statistics Committee.

Almost 86 percent was channeled into the oil and gas industry, the statistics service said on its website. Total foreign investment in the Caspian Sea nation amounted to $4.7 billion in the first half, an increase of 37 percent from a year earlier, the committee said.

Azerbaijan is the third-largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia and Kazakhstan. Output was 45.6 million metric tons of oil and 25.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Zulfugar Agayev in Baku at zagayev@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Hellmuth Tromm at htromm@bloomberg.net