According to the "Investment Policy of the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan"up to 5% of the Fund's assets can be invested in assets denominated in Turkish Lira and Russian Ruble. In the framework of the Investment policy first investments were made to the assets denominated in Turkish Lira during the current year and appropriate preparations to start investments in Russian Ruble have been completed.

On October 19, 2012 SOFAZ has invested RUB 3 billion (USD 100 million approximately) into the short term deposit at one of the biggest banks in Russia, Gazprombank.

As stated by Israfil Mammadov, Chief Investment Officer of SOFAZ, this is the first step in long term investment strategy into assets denominated in Russian Ruble and Fund plans further investments in other financial instruments in future.