Expenses of Azerbaijani business-sector can be reduced by almost thrice by way of eliminating permissions

The annual expenses of the business-sector of Azerbaijan for receipt of different permissions for entrepreneurial activity make AZN 35,000,000, said Boris Divak, head of IFC project on improvement of business climate, at a press conference.

"We have conducted a poll and studied the activity of 1800 companies to study the current situation on the business climate in the country and according to local entrepreneurs, their annual expenses for permissions make AZN 35 mln. By our estimates, if we facilitate or terminate the one tird of permissions, this amount can drop down to AZN 12,600,000", said Divak.

The annual expenses of the Azerbaijani government for issuance of licenses make AZN 16,300,000, which can be reduced to AZN 5 mln per year if definite reforms are conducted.

During the poll of entrepreneurs, they discussed the main problems of entrepreneurial activity, including availability of financial means, frequent changes in the country's legislation, which frequently leads to corruption, receipt of different permissions, the number of inspections, discontent with the judicial system.

In order to improve the situation in the business climate of the country IFC offers to create a register which will include the list of all kinds of permissions and licenses. This register will take into account not only the number of licenses and permissions, allocated by the state bodies, but also those, which are listed by entrepreneurs. This list will be specified in mid 2009.

Today, the overall number of licenses makes 56, while the exact number of permissions is unknown even to the state bodies.

Moreover, in the framework of the project, it will be proposed to ratify the general standards of issuance of permissions by the President of the country, like in case with the permission issuance.

It should be noted that the cost of the five year project makes $5 mln with a greater part allocated by the government of Switzerland and the remaining part by BP and other partners.

/Day.Az/