AZERBAIJAN DOING BUSINESS EASIER; TRANSPARENCY NOT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAKU 001239 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/05/2017 TAGS: ECON EFIN PREL KCOR EAID AJ SUBJECT: AZERBAIJAN DOING BUSINESS EASIER; TRANSPARENCY NOT BETTER REF: (A) BAKU 714 (B) BAKU 573 Classified By: Ambassador Anne E. Derse per 1.4 (B,D). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Azerbaijan's ranking in the 2008 World Bank/IFC "Doing Business" report improved five positions, to 96 of 178, due primarily to the April 2007 Presidential decree instructing government ministries and agencies to develop a plan to improve the business climate, including developing a one-stop-shop for business registration. At an October 8 briefing, World Bank Doing Business Director Simeon Djankov said that Azerbaijan's improved ranking was primarily due to its efforts to streamline business registration; he urged the GOAJ to further accelerate reforms in licensing requirements and customs and investor rights reforms, and noted that the GOAJ ranking could improve 20-30 places if it moved aggressively in these key business environment areas over the next year. Minister of Economic Development Babayev, who co-chaired the briefing with Djankov, noted that Azerbaijan was in the top 25 list of Doing Business reformers. Separately, Azerbaijan's ranking in this year's Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, deteriorated as Azerbaijan fell to 150th of 180. Presidential Legal Advisor Fuad Alasgarov, the driving force behind many of the GOAJ's anti-corruption efforts, expressed bitter disappointment with Azerbaijan's drop in the ranking. These two rankings illustrate the challenges of doing business in Azerbaijan, and the positive results that can be achieved when the GOAJ exercises serious political will. END SUMMARY. AZERBAIJAN IMPROVES IN DOING BUSINESS REPORT -------------- ¶2. (SBU) The 2008 World Bank/IFC "Doing Business" report ranks Azerbaijan at 96 (out of 178),an improvement of five positions compared to last year's ranking when taking into account that two countries were added to the ranking in 2008. Azerbaijan's improvement is primarily due to the April 2007 Presidential decree instructing government ministries and agencies to develop a plan to improve the business climate, including developing a one-stop-shop for business registration (REFTELS). Azerbaijan showed large improvement in the "starting a business" category, while in the other categories showed only minor improvement or deterioration. ¶3. (SBU) The Director of the Doing Business Program, Simeon 
Djankov, presented the results of the 2008 Doing Business Survey at an October 8 press event co-chaired by Minister of Economic Development Heydar Babaev. Djankov emphasized the improvements that Azerbaijan had begun to make in business registration (where the average time required to register a company had been cut in half, to approximately 30 days) and streamlining measures in the tax regime. He also emphasized the importance of continuing to further accelerate progress in these areas and noted that the GOAJ hopes to introduce further streamlining reforms designed to reduce business registration time to 10 days or less over the next year. ¶4. (SBU) Djankov said the GOAJ needs to focus more intensively on critical enabling environment areas where Azerbaijan's relative performance is poor. Specifically, he identified reductions in the the number of steps and the time and cost required to comply with licensing requirements as key next steps, adding that the World Bank hopes the GOAJ will adopt one stop shop-based regulatory reforms for licensing by the end of this year. (According to the IFC Country Representative, in the next few weeks, the GOAJ likely will announce that the Ministry of Taxation will assume responsibilities for business registration and overall business facilitation.) Djankov also emphasized the importance of accelerating reforms improving investor rights protections, and streamlining onerous and costly customs procedures. ¶5. (SBU) Minister Babayev emphasized the GOAJ's commitment to facilitate time-effective progress on these issues; and specifically identified customs and investor rights reform as vital to the GOAJ's efforts to accelerate the WTO accession process. Babayev noted that Azerbaijan was in the top 25 list of "Doing Business" reformers for 2008 (12th). Djankov emphasized that most countries in the region with high rankings began their reforms a decade or more ago (with the exception of Georgia, which started them about four years ago); and was quite upbeat upbeat overall about prospective improvements in Azerbaijan's position over the next two years. Djankov speculated that Azerbaijan could improve by 20 or 30 places next year if the GOAJ moves ahead aggressively in the registration/licensing, customs, and BAKU 00001239 002 OF 002 investor protection areas, areas that in his view all are achievable in relation to reforms being planned. (USAID is supporting these efforts through its new Trade and Investment Climate assistance program.) ¶6. (C) Djankov commented privately to the Ambassador and USAID that the World Bank would be discussing with the GOAJ a strategy to focus tighter attention on these issues by raising Minister Babayev's status to that of Deputy Prime Minister for Reform, to provide MED both the authority and the oversight required to compel other line ministries to undertake reform. Djankov noted that a number of countries have created separate ministers or ministries for promoting reform. This has been effective when the reform minister/ministry has the authority to compel action from line ministries, not simply "coordinate" among them. According to Djankov, the World Bank team planned to raise this in its October 8 meeting with President Aliyev. Djankov urged that the U.S. and other bilateral partners support with the President the idea of creating a reform "Super" minister/ministry. AZERBAIJAN'S TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL RANKING -------------- -- ¶7. (C) Of the 180 countries ranked by Transparency International in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, Azerbaijan failed to improve over last year's score and fell to 150th position with a score of 2.1. Azerbaijan shares the 150th position with Nigeria, Belarus, Republic of Congo, Liberia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. According to the local Transparency International representative, judicial corruption and lack of independence are the key problem areas for the GOAJ. Azerbaijan continues to struggle with its efforts to combat official and unofficial corruption. ¶8. (C) In a meeting with Emboffs prior to the release of the TI rankings, Presidential Legal Advisor Fuad Alasgarov, who is the driving force behind many of the GOAJ's anti-corruption efforts, expressed bitter disappointment with Azerbaijan's drop in the ranking. Noting that the GOAJ had worked closely with TI to host a large regional anti-corruption conference, and that Azerbaijan was one of the few countries to allow TI offices to operate freely in the regions, Alasgarov said he could not understand how Azerbaijan's corruption index had fallen. He speculated that TI's new methodology could have something to do with it. Emboffs reminded Alasgarov that anecdotal reports of corruption from both local and foreign businesses had increased over the last year, a point the Ambassador also makes regularly to the President. COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) These two rankings illustrate the many challenges of doing business and the positive results that can be achieved when the GOAJ exercises serious political will. Rankled by Azerbaijan's poor performance in the 2006 Doing Business ranking, President Aliyev instructed Minister of Economic Babayev to take steps to address these problems; faced with significant pressure from the President, Babayev and the MED worked with the World Bank to make relatively quick progress. While World Bank officials have admitted privately that the pace of reform is slower than they would have liked (reftels),GOAJ reforms in the business registration process are nonetheless signficant and hopefully will be replicated in other key business environment areas. The challenge, of course, is to energize the same degree of political will in the politically sensitive area of anti-corruption, where senior GOAJ officials' personal interests are affected by reform. Azerbaijan's slightly improved ranking in the "Doing Business" report was deserved and hopefully will serve as a carrot for the GOAJ to continue its efforts to improve the business and investment climate. As the local World Bank representative noted, "For Azerbaijan, it will be a marathon, not a sprint, but at least they are now running." Azerbaijan's effort to implement many of its commitments to fight corruption, however, have been lacking and the GOAJ will need to reinvigorate its efforts in order to change its dismal ranking. DERSE