WB experts talk on Azerbaijan’s positions in Doing Business ranking

By  Trend

Decrease of Azerbaijan’s positions in the World Bank’s (WB) Doing Business 2018 ranking on a number of indicators doesn’t mean that the country doesn’t work in these directions, WB expert Maria Gamez told Trend.

She said that Azerbaijan carries out a lot of work for development in these areas and achieves rapid growth rates, but the countries of the region are ahead of Azerbaijan on these indicators.

In addition, a number of reforms carried out by Azerbaijan fall out the reporting period, and they will be taken into account in the WB’s next report, she noted.

For example, Azerbaijan lost several positions on “Getting Credit” indicator, she said. This is explained by the fact that Azerbaijan didn’t adopt the law on registration of movable property at the time of writing the report, she added.

In other countries of the region, this legislation was applied long ago and bears fruit, she said.

In turn, WB expert Klaus Koch-Saldarriaga noted that Azerbaijan also lags behind the region on “Dealing with Construction Permits” indicator.

On average, 16 procedures are required for obtaining a building permit in the region, while 21 procedures are required for that in Azerbaijan, he added.

Azerbaijan ranked 57th among 190 countries in the Doing Business 2018. The distance to frontier score stood at 70.19. This is while in the previous report, Azerbaijan ranked 65th and scored 67.07.

The rankings are based on the average of each economy’s distance to frontier scores for the 10 topics included in this year’s aggregate ranking. This measure shows how close each economy is to global best practices in business regulation. A higher score indicates a more efficient business environment and stronger legal institutions. Thus, Azerbaijan’s position in this report has improved compared to the last year's report.

The WB said that during the reporting period, Azerbaijan has carried out four reforms, as compared to three during the previous reporting period.

Azerbaijan joined the WB Group in 1992.