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Baku (AFP) Oct 22, 2010 Lawmakers in Azerbaijan on Friday approved a state budget for next year that nearly doubles defence spending and forecasts continued economic growth for the energy-rich former Soviet republic. The boost in defence spending, after Azerbaijan already more than doubled military expenditures in the last two years, comes amid rising tensions in the country's conflict with Armenia over the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region. Lawmakers voted 104-5 in favour of the budget, which predicts Azerbaijan's gross domestic product (GDP) will grow 3.8 percent in 2011. Buoyed by increasing oil and gas exports, Azerbaijan's economy has continued to expand in recent years despite the global economic crisis, but growth has fallen from a peak of 34.5 percent in 2006. Defence spending will rise to 2.5 billion Azerbaijani manats (3.1 billion dollars/2.2 billion euros), a figure Finance Minister Samir Sharifov told parliament earlier was an 89.7 percent increase over this year. He said nearly 1.1 billion manats (1.4 billion dollars/989 million euros) of the spending will be used to modernise the Azerbaijani military through the purchase of up-to-date equipment and weaponry. Total budget revenues next year are predicted at 12.06 billion manats (15 billion dollars/10.8 billion euros), up 4.9 percent from this year, and expenditures at 12.74 billion manats (15.9 billion dollars/11.5 billion euros), up 3.8 percent, with a budget deficit of 1.7 percent of GDP. Azerbaijan is locked in a long-simmering conflict with Armenia over Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized control during a war in the early 1990s that left an estimated 30,000 dead. Tensions over Karabakh have been increasing this year amid stalled peace talks, with the number of deadly skirmishes along a ceasefire line on the rise. At least 19 soldiers on both sides have been reported killed in clashes this year, including eight soldiers killed last month alone.
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