OREANDA-NEWS. January 15, 2010. The Public Association of Assistance to Economic Initiatives has conducyed a news conference devoted to existing problems in the mechanism of sale and rent of municipal land.

Association’s chair Rovshan Agayev said that within the framework of Local Self-Government Reinforcement Project they organized a survey aimed at improving the mechanism of municipal land sales and rent through contests and auctions.

“Within the survey we monitored the process of holding a contest and auction on 14 August 2009 in Salyan and Barda regions. We also studied legislative base of Azerbaijan, international experience, arranged public debates and polls among different groups,” Agayev said.

Association’s expert Samir Aliyev, in his turn, said that sales of land was the main source of earnings of country’s municipalities, but land sales reduced much after the mechanism was put into force.

“For instance, in 2008 land sales by municipalities made up 43.5% of revenues and for the first 9 months of 2009 this indicator lowered to 23.6%.

For this period of 2009 municipalities’ budget received 3.7 million at the expense of privatization of municipal lands that is 5-fold less than the 2008 figure,” Aliyev emphasized.