Azerbaijan invests 600 mln manats in privatized enterprises
By Aynur Jafarova
Azerbaijan has privatized 65 state-owned enterprises through investment tenders in 2006-2014.
About 600 million manats were invested in these privatized enterprises, which ensured the creation of over 8,500 new working places, Azerbaijan's State Property Issues Committee said on August 19.
In 2014, the country privatized 400 small state enterprises and facilities, non-residential areas and unfinished buildings. About 310 non-residential areas and more than 250 plots of land were leased, and plots of land of about 300 objects were privatized.
Privatization of state property in Azerbaijan started at the end of 1995 with the adoption of the State Program of Privatization of State Property covering the 1995-1998 years. The program took a mass privatization approach, which was intended to transfer state ownership to private individuals while limiting the inflationary impact of privatization, focusing mainly on small-scale enterprises.
Some 15 percent of the small-scale enterprises were sold to the workers' collective on preferential terms and 85 percent were disposed through cash auctions.
Azerbaijan has conducted detailed studies on the privatization of joint-stock companies with state participation within the framework of the strategic plan approved by the State Committee for 2013-2017.
The government also has taken various measures to attract investment to restore the activity of enterprises and their development, and improves works on privatization via investment tenders.
So far the government has received about 150 applications in electronic form for participation in the auctions for the privatization of state assets, and about 300 state facilities have been privatized on the basis of electronic applications.
Applications in the electronic form can be submitted for participation in the auction for the sale of shares, the privatization of small state-owned enterprises and objects of unfinished buildings, vehicles owned by the state organizations.
In the first half of 2014, about 2,080 state-owned enterprises and organizations submitted their annual reports to the State Committee in electronic form.
The official exchange rate for August 19 is 0.7842 AZN/USD.