The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan announces the best research story competition for journalists for the purpose of increasing public awareness in Azerbaijan on the transparent management of the oil revenues, implementation of EITI in Azerbaijan and the Fund's other activities.

Topics:

1. Achievements that took Azerbaijan's Oil Fund to the winning of the UN Public Service Award

2. What did Azerbaijan gain from implementation of EITI?

3. The importance of ensuring transparency in management of oil revenues in the Azerbaijan citizens' life

Awards:

1^st place - 250 AZN

2^nd place - 150 AZN

3^rd place - 100 AZN

The winners will be awarded the certificates issued by SOFAZ as well.

Terms of the competition:

The participant of the competition should have minimum two years of experience in preparation of research stories and represent well-known media. The research stories on the above mentioned topics prepared by the journalists, who joined the competition, must be published on local or international media from July 16, 2007 to October 15, 2007. The participants of the competition are required to submit the following documents by October 31, 2007 every working day from 10:00 a.m to 18:00 p.m to the Public Relations Office of SOFAZ:

1. Filled and printed out APPLICATION FORM available at www.oilfund.az

2. Copy of the certificate issued by media organization

3. Copy of the issue of the competition material published media

The article should bear following sentence on top of it: "This material is prepared for the best research story competition for the purpose of increasing public awareness in Azerbaijan"

The results of the competition will be announced after October 31, 2007.

Board of judges:

Jahangir Mammadli - Dean of the journalism department of BSU, the chairman

of the Public Television Broadcasting Company

Ibrahim Mammadli - Chairman of Zardabi Press Centre, member of Press

Council

Sabit Baghirov - President of Economical and Political Research Centre,

member of the Coalition for Improving Transparency in

Extractive Industries

Adil Mammadov - Head of the EITI Secretariat

The facts on the topics can be obtained from the Public Relations Office of SOFAZ.

Contact:

Tel: 498 6534 (direct)

498 7753 (internal 132)