Azerbaijan stimulates business environment
By Nigar Orujova
Azerbaijan seeks to stimulate business development in the country by introducing new privileges for entrepreneurs.
President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree simplifying licensing procedures for entrepreneurship and encouraging business transparency on October 19.
The decree stated that development of entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan is a priority, but a large number of licenses required for business purposes and the existing procedures for their issuance have created additional obstacles for the development of entrepreneurship and rampant corruption.
At present, there are 56 types of such licenses in the country, and reduction will surely take great strides to simplify doing business.
Moreover, the decree envisages rendering services for issuing business licenses by ASAN service, which has already shown itself as the easiest way to acquire documents in Azerbaijan. The service successfully serves its primary aim – fighting corruption and bribery.
In addition, the decree expedites the creation of the ‘Electronic License’ portal, ensuring the issuance of business licenses, certificates and other documents in electronic form, which will make them more available.
The long-awaited decree also reduces of the number of inspections among entrepreneurs.
The numerous inspections have caused frequent complaints by entrepreneurs as they were not always carried out to reveal any violations, but to gain money.
These inspections have led to the closure of many small and medium-sized enterprises, which also means closure of workplaces.
Starting from November 1, these inspections will be carried only by the General Directorate for Combating Corruption under the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan.
Thus, for two years, entrepreneurs will be free of inspections from ministries supervising economy and economy-related fields.
This measure is expected to expand the basis for taxation and increase the total amount of taxes.
These factors were indicated as key hindrances to the development of entrepreneurship in the country. Developing the private sector of economy is of particular importance in the current economic situation, because a drop in oil revenues necessitates finding new sources of income.
Azerbaijan is expanding its non-oil sector, including through private investments. The government is taking measures to simplify business procedures. They also include changes to the Tax Code, which will come into force in 2016. These changes will simplify the tax system in construction, trade and catering.
The current changes are expected to make the business environment more attractive in the country and give major momentum to the development of entrepreneurship.
Moreover, more ambitious steps are planned to eliminate artificial barriers to the development of entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan.
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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar
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