Azerbaijan accelerates digital revolution, reaching over 65% of population with digital IDs

At the GSMA M360 Eurasia 2024 international conference held in Baku, Deputy Minister of Digital Development and Transport, Samir Mammadov, revealed that 65% of Azerbaijan's population utilises digital ID, Azernews reports.

Mammadov underscored the Azerbaijani government's commitment to digitalization, citing the formulation of a comprehensive development strategy focused on digital government, society, and business. The aim is to expand digitalization initiatives in alignment with this strategy.

"A development strategy related to digitalization has been prepared in the country. The strategy includes three pillars: digital government, society, and business. Our goal is to expand the scope of digitalization based on this strategy," Samir Mammadov said.

Highlighting the digital infrastructure progress, Mammadov noted that 90% of households in Baku now have access to broadband fibre optic internet, with an overall national coverage of 74%. He emphasised the importance of establishing reliable infrastructure to support Azerbaijan's digital transformation, expressing optimism about the collaborative efforts yielding positive outcomes.

"Reliable infrastructure for transformation should be built in Azerbaijan. Work is also being done in this direction, and I think that more positive results will be achieved as a result of joint activities," he emphasised.

Moreover, Mammadov stated that 500 small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan are receiving support for digitization efforts. He emphasised the role of digitization in fostering economic development, providing enhanced access to services and information. Efforts are underway to broaden digitization initiatives and ensure accessibility to various services, with a particular focus on supporting business entities.

"It provides access to services and information. We are trying to expand activities in digitization, to ensure the accessibility of many services. In this regard, work is underway to support business entities," the minister said.