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Country Snapshot - Azerbaijan  

HighlightsRankingsQuantitative DataLegislationAnalytical WorkProject Portfolio
  • Eastern Europe & Central Asia
  • Lower middle income
  • 8,883,200 (2011)
  • 5,180
Azerbaijan Flag
Below are select highlights for the data included in the profile.

  1. Azerbaijan’s economic freedom score is 59.7, making its economy the 92nd freest in the 2011 Index. The overall score is 0.9 point higher than last year, reflecting significant improvements in fiscal freedom, monetary freedom, and freedom from corruption. Azerbaijan is ranked 15th out of 41 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and its overall score is above the regional average. Azerbaijan’s government has embraced wide-ranging reforms including openness to global trade, relatively moderate taxation, and streamlined business processes that have aided the country’s transition to a market-based system.
  2. According to the latest Enterprise Surveys (2009), the three major constraints to investment in Azerbaijan include access to finance, tax rates and corruption.
  3. Azerbaijan's Doing Business jumped 4 spots in the Paying Taxes Indicator last year. Indeed, a revision of the tax code lowered several tax rates, including the profit tax rate, and simplified the process of paying corporate income tax and value added tax. The country also improved access to credit by establishing an online platform allowing financial institutions to provide information to, and retrieve it from, the public credit registry.
  4. The country's ranking remains unchanged in the EIU global ranking, at 74th, but it falls to the bottom of the EIU regional ranking, reflecting greater improvements elsewhere. As a result of lower oil production growth - which had been the main factor driving economic activity up until 2010 - the government is likely to introduce measures to diversify the economy. However, the effectiveness of such legislation will be hampered by widespread corruption, which will deter most potential investors outside of the oil sector.