Azerbaijan continues public finance reform with IMF support

The Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan, together with experts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has completed the latest stage of work on improving fiscal statistics.

This is stated in the IMF technical report following the mission of the Regional Capacity Development Center for the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia (CCAMTAC).

According to the document, the mission of IMF expert Roderick O'Mahony was conducted in a hybrid format — remotely in November 2025 and in person in Baku in February 2026. The main objective was to assist the Azerbaijani authorities in compiling quarterly and annual fiscal statistics in accordance with the international standard GFSM 2014 to enhance the transparency and quality of economic analysis.

Within the framework of the approved annual action plan, the Agency for Management of State Debt and Financial Obligations under the Ministry of Finance agreed to begin regular provision of quarterly government debt data to the joint IMF and World Bank database (QPSD). Azerbaijan's annual government finance statistics for 2025, according to IMF estimates, will be officially submitted to the Fund's Statistics Department by the end of July 2026.

The report notes that the parties are eliminating methodological discrepancies in accounting for aggregate debt obligations, in particular, working out a mechanism for accounting for loans of state corporations that are guaranteed or financed by the government.

In addition, the Ministry of Finance of Azerbaijan and the IMF will continue to expand the institutional coverage of fiscal statistics. In the long term, public law legal entities and extrabudgetary funds will be included in the consolidated reporting of the central government. The authorities are also preparing to update the national functional classification of budget expenditures according to the COFOG standard and are considering the implementation of a new Chart of Accounts, which will require additional technical assistance from international financial institutions.