Azerbaijan Deteriorated Competitiveness of Its Economy

According to the Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016, compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Azerbaijan Competitiveness Report ranked the 40th place among 140 countries - participants. Last year, it took the 38th place among 144 participants on the impact of the relative failure of low world oil prices and sluggish economic diversification in these conditions. "At a time when expectations in the long term commodity prices will remain relatively low, diversification and implementation of market-oriented policies are particularly important in order to achieve long-term growth," the report says.

According to the report, Azerbaijan is faced with two major challenges in the future development. First of all, it's corruption as the most problematic factor for doing business, and secondly, the financial sector of the country is still not sufficiently developed, which is particularly problematic for a country that needs private investment.

However, according to the rating of competitiveness compiled by WEF, Azerbaijan occupies the highest place in the countries of the former Soviet Union (except Estonia). "Azerbaijan has gone through the recent crisis better than its neighbors, although dropped in the ranking by two positions. Azerbaijan has a strong macroeconomic environment characterized by low inflation and a favorable level of public finances. However, the decline in prices for oil and gas, which is not considered in this report due to the timelines in obtaining data, can continue to have a negative impact on the state budget," the document says.

With regard to the position, Azerbaijan is the first state in the world, according to official figures of inflation and the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), since their low level. Thus, inflation will not exceed 1.4%, and HIV does not cover more than 0.2% of the population. In terms of ease of starting a business (3 treatments) it takes the 9th place in terms of gross national savings (39.2% of GDP) and the 8th place at the spread of malaria (0 to 100 thousand population) and on the level of public debt (16.4% of GDP) it is in 14th place.

In terms of the development of economic institutions the country took the 64th place, the level of infrastructure development - 65th, macroeconomic stability - 10th place, health and primary education - 102nd place, higher education - 89th place, the development of financial markets - 114th place, goods market efficiency - 66th, labor market efficiency - 30th, technological readiness - 57th, the size of the market - 67th, Innovation - 61st, business assistance - 73rd place.

In the audit compliance ranking Azerbaijan took 92nd place, the protection of minority shareholders - 83rd place, the protection of investors - 50th place, the protection of intellectual property - 92nd, the efficiency of the legal system in the regulation of disputes - 67th, the effectiveness of the board of directors - 91st, transparency of government policy - 55th, wastefulness of government spending - 54th.

In addition, on the quality of infrastructure in Azerbaijan took the 39th place, on the quality of roads - 70th, the quality of the railway infrastructure - 39th, the quality of infrastructure of air transport - 41st, the quality of port infrastructure - 59th, the level of maintenance of mobile phones - 78th.

According to the report, on the tax burden in the ranking of Azerbaijan took the 79th place, the effectiveness of anti-monopoly legislation - 113th place, the number of procedures for business registration - 9th, and the time for business registration - 18th.

In the first place, there is Switzerland, the second - Singapore. Following them, the top ten includes the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Finland, Sweden and the UK. --17D-