Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Seventy-one state facilities were put up for privatization in Azerbaijan as part of an action plan to revitalize the country’s economy amid the low oil prices.

The country’s State Committee for Property Affairs reported that 31 of these facilities are joint stock companies operating in various sectors of economy, two are non-residential areas, 10 are means of transport, and 28 are other state properties and facilities.

Total value of shares of the enterprises put up for sale with a 50-percent discount exceeds 2.4 million manats ($1,477 million).

Due to lack of data on the nominal value of all the enterprises, it is impossible to specify the exact value of shares put up for sale.

A complete list of state facilities put up for sale can be found at http://privatization.az/index.php/az/sas-s-hif/mue-ssis-l-r# portal, which was issued this July to significantly simplify the process of privatization and to increase transparency in this area.

The portal was designed in two languages - Azerbaijani and English, which allows foreign investors to actively participate in the privatization process. In addition, the portal has a special section called “Why Azerbaijan?” that explains foreign investors why they should invest in the country.

President Ilham Aliyev previously noted the need for a large-scale privatization in the country. The president said that a specific business plan should be introduced for each enterprise that will be offered for privatization.

“The business plan, the responsibility, the obligation should be considered. Otherwise it will turn out that someone will buy the enterprise, and it will not work again. We need leading foreign consulting companies, because the privatization must be transparent, and the state’s interests must be secured.”

Last year more than 1,000 different public facilities were privatized in Azerbaijan. Some 685 small state enterprises and objects, unfinished buildings, vehicles, 456 land plots, and 20 joint stock companies were privatized. Moreover, 464 non-residential area and 298 plots of land were leased and five state-owned enterprises were privatized through investment competitions.

Today, there are still a sufficient number of businesses in Azerbaijan that are entirely on the state balance sheet. There are many fields where privatization can take place including energy sector, as well as oil and gas sectors.

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov announced earlier that most of the medical institutions in the county could be privatized in the future.

The process of privatization is not the guarantee of the economic revival, but it strengthens the competitiveness of the economic sphere, which includes a combination of private and public ownership.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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