Free Oil Trade Allows Economy of Azerbaijan to Be «Moderately Free»

The development of the energy sector, openness to world trade and formal improvements in management efficiency facilitate the transition of Azerbaijan's economy to a market system. These indicators provide it a score of 60.2 and the 91st position out of 178 in the ranking of economic freedom, prepared by the Heritage Foundation experts.

Thus, the local economy due to the said figures appeared in the list of Moderately Free. The best indicators include "fiscal freedom", "management efficiency" and "free trade." But property rights and freedom from corruption caused serious criticism from experts, which led to a pullback from last year's position by 0.8 points.

The experts believe that the country does not have employees of a high professional level and there is a need to broaden the production base, which requires further transformation and restructuring.

In the table of ranks Azerbaijan is located next to Kazakhstan, Armenia and Turkey, considerably behind Georgia, located in the list of countries with mostly free economy. Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are "mostly non-free" and the economic situation in the CIS is the worst one in Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, where economic freedom is “subdued”.

The ranking leaders in terms of economic freedom are Hong Kong (88.6 points), Singapore (87.8), New Zealand (81.6), Switzerland (81.0) and Australia (80.3).

Heritage Foundation believes that without economic freedom there is no freedom in principle, because it gives people the opportunity to work, make something new, consume, buy, sell and invest on their own choice. --17D-