According to Fitch, progress in reducing reliance on public sources of funding and moving towards market-determined financing costs differed across sectors and entities.

The project was launched in the aftermath of last year’s unprecedented mass protests which clearly jolted Lukashenko after his disputed re-election to a sixth term and the widespread, and often brutal, use of security forces and the courts to crush dissent.

The U.S. embassy said the parliamentary vote doing away with the office of the State Inspector General undermined Georgia’s efforts to build durable, transparent democratic institutions.

Azerbaijan’s Energy Ministry welcomed the decision and is now scheduled to produce 668,000 bpd in February.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 10.7 percent year-on-year in January-November after contracting 5.9 percent in the same period a year earlier.