Doing Business 2020: Azerbaijan carried out 4 successful reforms

By Rasana Gasimova

Azerbaijan ranked 34th among 190 countries in the Doing-Business-2020 rating published by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

According to the report published on October 24, Azerbaijan carried out four successful reforms from May 2018 to May 2019, thereby fulfilling four out of five goals. These reforms were related to registering property, obtaining credit, protecting minority investors and enforcing contracts. Due to these indicators, Azerbaijan entered the list of top 20 reformer countries.

Azerbaijan’s index in the updated rating amounted to 76.7 (2019’s index - 73.6). The country improved its place in the global ranking in several indicators: according to the “Getting credit” indicator, Azerbaijan ranks 1st (last year the country occupied 22nd place), “Enforcing contracts” - 28th place (40th place), "Dealing with construction permits" - 59th place (61st place), and "Trading across borders" - 83rd place (84th place).

Azerbaijan has maintained its 9th place in “starting a business” indicator.

The country worsened its position a number of indicators: “Paying taxes” - 40th place (20th place last year), “Registering property” - 44th place (17th place), “Resolving insolvency” - 47th place (45th place), “Getting electricity” - 80th place (74th place), and “Protecting minority investors” - 105th place (2nd place).

Among the post-Soviet countries, Azerbaijan is outperformed by Georgia (7th place), Lithuania (11th place), Estonia (18th place), Latvia (19th place), Kazakhstan (25th place) and Russia (28th place).

Armenia is 47th in the ranking, Turkey is 33rd, and Ukraine is 64th.

New Zealand occupies the first place in the ranking, followed by Singapore. Hong Kong, Denmark, South Korea, the USA, Georgia, the UK, Norway, and Sweden hit the top 10.

The list of outsiders is stable. Somalia occupies the last place, preceded by Eritrea, Venezuela, Yemen, Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and DR Congo.

Azerbaijan ranked 25th among 190 countries in Doing Business 2019, while it was the 57th in Doing Business 2018.

The Doing Business project, which began in 2002, is dedicated to the activities of national small and medium-sized enterprises and the assessment of regulations applied to them throughout their life cycle.

Doing Business is a ranking annually published by the World Bank Group, which assesses regulatory standards in entrepreneurial activity.

The project sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation.

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