Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev signed into bill a $27bn development project on December 6, Trend news agency reports. The so-called “Strategic Roadmap” contains goals for 12 different areas of the economy, ranging from logistics and heavy industry to housing, financial services and the oil industry for the next three years.

The majority of the funding will come from re-structuring existing state and local budgets, the 120-page document says, although Baku will also tap into extra-budgetary funding for it. The plan was reportedly developed by consultancy McKinsey.

Furthermore, according to the document, the central bank will shift from a controlled to a full flotation of the currency in 2017. The Azerbaijani regulator has used some 70% of its reserves thus far to manage the manat and its efforts were also supported by biweekly capital market interventions by sovereign  wealth fund Sofaz. The currency has lost more than half of its value against the dollar since early 2015, a depreciation that has prompted double-digit inflation.

According to the roadmap, the flotation will support the development of capital markets, the introduction of hedging instruments and insurance instruments against exchange rate risks.

Lastly, the plan aims to reduce the country's dependence on oil revenues by creating a roadmap to cap disbursements from Sofaz to the state budget to 15% of the total budget by 2025. Sofaz' contributions account for some 40% of the state budget at the moment. In the 2017 state budget, the fund's contributions are anticipated to drop by 20% y/y to AZN6.1bn (€3.2bn), or 37% of total spending.