Azerbaijan has climbed 8 spots to rank 57th in the Doing Business 2018, which presents quantitative indicators on business regulation and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time. Azerbaijan is among notable reformers in Europe and Central Asia region, the World Bank said in the report.

Azerbaijan is one of 13 countries that passed legislation in 2016/17 that increased corporate transparency requirements.

“These laws give more agenda-setting power to shareholders and disclose board member activities in other companies,

executive compensation and audit reports.”

Azerbaijan is also one of the nine economies that took steps to clarify corporate governance, ownership and control structures by, for example, enacting legislation that requires companies to nominate independent board members and set up an audit committee. “These changes resulted in improvements in the scores of these nine economies on the extent of ownership and control index,” according to the report.

It also hails Azerbaijan`s important amendments to its legal framework to provide creditors with additional safeguards and enable their participation in important decisions that affect their interests.

“Azerbaijan improved access to credit information by adopting a law allowing the establishment of credit bureaus.”

Azerbaijan strengthened minority investor protections by increasing shareholder rights and role in major corporate decisions, clarifying ownership and control structures and requiring greater corporate transparency,” the report says.

“Azerbaijan made enforcing contracts easier by introducing a system that allows users to pay court fees electronically.”

“Azerbaijan made resolving insolvency easier by making insolvency proceedings more accessible for creditors and granting them greater participation in the proceedings, improving provisions on the treatment of contracts during insolvency and introducing the possibility to obtain post-commencement financing,” the report says.

AZERTAC