BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 23. The portfolio
of shares of the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) has grown
sharply over the past two years, exceeding $17 billion, the
well-known Azerbaijani expert-economist, Ingilab Ahmadov said on
his social media page, Trend reports.

“Currently, shares make up 25.7 percent of the total investment
portfolio of the fund, taking the third place after bonds (38.9
percent) and gold (28.8 percent). Last year, the main part of the
fund’s revenue, in the amount of six percent, was provided by
shares. The cumulative return on shares since 2012 was 211.3
percent,” he explained.

The economist emphasized that shares, especially in the dotcom
segment, are the most risky investments, and the annual increase in
their share in the conditions of an unstable global investment
environment requires both knowledge and experience, as well as
considerable courage from the management of the fund.

“The largest sovereign fund that invests in the stock market is
the Norwegian pension fund with assets of $2 trillion. Shares make
up 70.6 percent of its assets. The income from the investment
management of the Norwegian fund is twice the income from the oil
and gas sector,” Ahmadov noted.

According to him, recent years show that the growing dynamics of
the SOFAZ stock portfolio allow us to state the following: The Fund
intends to achieve similar successes in this direction.

“As you can see from the graph, the Fund bets on the stock
market, gradually reducing the share of fixed income bonds and
annually increasing the weight of this instrument in the
portfolio,” he added.