OREANDA-NEWS. June 26, 2009. Azerbaijan Business Enabling Environment Project (ABEEP), initiated by International Finance Corporation (IFC) and financed by Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Foreign Relations (SECO) and BP Azerbaijan with the AIOC reports of a high state control level on small- and mid-sized entrepreneurship in the country.

According to ABEEP report, business is subjected to 9 inspections conducted by state agencies, for which AZN 363 (around USD454) is spent on average.

At the same time, inspections result in financial expenditures for 86% of the enterprises engaged in trade and restaurant business, 80% of construction companies, 74% of manufacturing companies, 70% of serving companies, 22% of agricultural enterprises. Average indicator in the country makes 79% of enterprises.

ABEEP is also ready to conduct a poll with the purpose of uncovering the efficiency of one stop shop business registration system.

“The poll can be conducted in August-September and will cover from 600 up to 1,000 enterprises registered by one stop shop principle. Results of the poll aimed at uncovering the efficiency (expenditures) of the system and presence of weak spots may be announced in end-December.” Boris Divjak said.

Respondents will be chosen among 10,000 enterprises under the principle of representativeness and is to cover all the regions of the country.

Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development Niyazi Safarov said that one stop shop business registration system reduced registration time to 3 days.

The report is based on the results of a survey of managers of approximately 1,800 small and medium enterprises (SMEs), conducted by early 2008, representing all regions and key sectors of the economy, supplemented by an extensive legal and institutional analysis. This was then compared against the good international practices and recommendations were being made jointly with the Azerbaijani authorities focused on improvements in most areas of the business life cycle. The study aims at reducing the regulatory burden on business; monitoring the business environment of the SME sector; and by its dissemination increase public awareness of the key development issues.

The launch event for the publication will also try to initiate a debate as to what are the key challenges, as identified by the study. Invited to take an active part in the debate are public officials from the agencies regulating the business environment, private sector representatives, business associations, international development and donor agencies and embassies that support similar programs in Azerbaijan.

Earlier report presentation was scheduled for January 2009.

ABEEP conducted a poll of small and medium-size business on the subject of clarification of the situation with business environment in this sector.

Selection of the poll respondents based on the data of the State Statistics Committee and can claim for representativeness.

The project period is five years and in 2009-10 it will focus on simplification of issue of permits and licenses for business.