For Azerbaijan, the biggest question at present is what to do with the so-called “wall of money” that will start to accrue once the oil begins to flow. Some observers are already predicting a bad case of pending “Dutch disease”- by which an increase in oil revenues renders a country’s manufacturing less competitive by raising the exchange rate – unless Baku manages to divert both state and private investment into the non-oil sector and addresses the subject of income disparity between the new rich and the growing number of disgruntled or desperately poor,” Thomas Goltz wrote for The International Herald Tribune.
“For now, the question of the political ramifications of future oil-related wealth is on hold as investors, citizens and former pipe-dreamers celebrate the realization of what is now a “pipeline to somewhere.” I hope my zany motorcycle circus of six years ago played some little part in this process. I also hope that the current leadership of Azerbaijan will use the occasion of its new-found wealth to win more than just fair-weather friends and address some of the urgent social issues at play here on the shore of the Caspian,” the observer wrote.
