FIMSA talks on expectations from insurance market

He made the remarks at the 7th International Caspian Energy Forum 2018, held in Baku.

“At the end of last year, the premiums in the insurance sector of Azerbaijan amounted to almost 568 million manats ($333.14 million), but in the first eight months of this year, insurance companies collected premiums worth 517 million manats ($303.23 million). This shows that the growth of the country’s insurance sector will continue in 2018 as well,” Alishov said.

He added that FIMSA also expects to significantly increase the share of the insurance sector in the Azerbaijan’s GDP.

“According to the strategic roadmap for the financial sector development, the share of the insurance market in the country’s GDP should be 1.6 percent by 2020. We are successfully moving towards this indicator,” the executive director noted.

He mentioned that at the end of last year, the share of the insurance sector in GDP was 0.9 percent, but this figure was already 1.1 percent in the first seven months of this year.

Alishov also noted the gradual recovery in the banking sector of Azerbaijan. He said this year the banks of Azerbaijan began to gradually restore lending and increase their capital.

“Over the past year, the volume of bank deposits of the population increased by 16 percent, and most of these deposits were placed in manats. The dollarization rate fell from 66.7 percent at the beginning of the year to 63 percent,” the executive director said.

He added that since the beginning of the year, banks have issued loans in the amount of 3.7 billion manats ($2.17 billion), of which 2 billion manats ($1.17 billion) accounted for business loans.

“Investments in the capital of the banking sector were made in the amount of 1.5 billion manats ($880 million), of which 348 million manats ($204.11 million) have been invested since the beginning of the year,” Alishov mentioned.