DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT “AZERBAIJAN - 2020: OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE” Project 3. Azerbaijan 2020: Strategic View and Main Priorities The main strategic view of the concept is to take account of the current opportunities and resources and attain a stage characterized by sustainable economic growth and high social welfare, effective state management and supremacy of the law, the full ensuring of all human rights and freedoms and the active status of the civil society in the country’s public life. In 2020, Azerbaijan will be an economically and politically developed and competitive country. Even in the most remote villages of Azerbaijan, all communications required in the daily lives of citizens (communications, Internet, banking services, public utilitizies, roads and so on), health and education services will be provided. Azerbaijan will be a place where the population’s incomes are high, unemployment is minimum, human capital is highly developed, the environment is protected and health and every citizen has broad opportunities. As a result of the measures stipulated by the concept, by the end of the period, the volume of per capita GDP in the country will increase more than twice and reach 13,000 US dollars. According to the World Bank classification of GDP, in 2020 Azerbaijan is expected to become a full member of the group of “countries with high average income” and eliminate its dependence on the export of hydrocarbons, which is the main reason for its belonging to this group at the moment, and to reach the highest positions in the group of “countries with high human development” according to the human development classification of the UN Development Programme. From an economic point of view, the Azerbaijan Republic will turn from the region’s leading state into a highly competitive participant in the international system of economic relations. To this end, taking into account the favourable geographical position and broad potential, it is planned to turn the country into the region’s commercial centre and to bring the volume of per capita non-oil export to 1,000 US dollars. In order to achieve the aforesaid goal, state regulation which ensures healthy competition in market economy conditions, transformation into an export-oriented economy that makes efficient use of energy and creates high added value and principles of a complex approach to the development of socio-economic spheres will be taken as a basis. Within the framework of the concept, it is planned to turn the country’s economy into an economy based on efficiency as a result of a growth in general productivity and ensure transition to a stage characterized by the dominance of innovations. Increasing the competitiveness of the economy encompasses such fields as the protection of macroeconomic stability, the strengthening of the coordination of the 9