Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan has ranked 101st among 125 countries in an international property rights report, despite considerable improvements reported in the past years.
Scandinavian countries in northern Europe topped the Property Rights Alliance’s 2010 International Property Rights Index. Finland received the highest score, followed by Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland. Also in the top ten are New Zealand, Singapore, Australia and Austria. Remarkably, the United States ranked only 15th in the report, which is an aggregate evaluation on three criteria – legal and political environment, physical property rights and intellectual property rights.
North America was considered the region with the best-protected property rights, followed by western Europe.
The researchers noted, however, that the situation is not ideal in the top-ranked countries, either. For instance, in Finland, which has topped the rating for four years running, challenges remain with intellectual property rights, as pirate software accounts for 25 percent of the market.
The rankings enable a conclusion that, as a rule, the more rapidly countries are developing and the greater their per capita income is, the more protected property rights are. For example, the average gross income per head in the top ten countries is $35,000, compared to $20,000 in the medium-ranked countries and only around $4,000 in the low-ranked countries.
Though Azerbaijan is among countries trailing in the list, the analysts reported considerable improvements in the past four years. Legal and political environment significantly improved in the country in 2009, which is explained chiefly by streamlined legal procedures.
The Property Rights Alliance also emphasized tangible progress in the protection of physical and intellectual property rights in Azerbaijan.
Overall, despite the low rating, the report repeatedly points to improvements achieved in property rights protection in the fast-growing South Caucasus republic since 2007.
The analysts did not elaborate on their reasoning for this conclusion and merely noted the reduction of the property registration term to 11 days from the previous 60 days, while the other improvements pertained to legal reforms and political stability.
Among the former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan surpassed only Georgia and Armenia, the two neighboring South Caucasus republics, which ranked twelve points and eight points below the country respectively.
Moldova ranked 84th, while Kazakhstan and Russia 88th, and Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine 97th. Belarus was among the countries that were not assessed due to the lack of information available.*