Washington briefing: Seeking to overtake Armenia in rating, Azerbaijan improves business regulation

by Emil Sanamyan and Lusine Sarkisyan

Published: Tuesday September 23, 2008

Washington - It has become somewhat more difficult to do business inArmenia, according to the World Bank study released on September 8, which rankscountries based on their business regulations. Armenia was ranked 44th of 181 countries in this year's report; it was39th of 178 ranked last year.

As in years past the Doing Business 2009 report was led bySingapore, New Zealand, the United States, and Hong Kong. In Armenia'sneighborhood, Georgia improved from 18th to 15th position last year andAzerbaijan moved up the most - rising from 96th to 33rd position this year.

Making similarly rapid improvement were Albania, Kyrgyzstan,and Belarus, which along with Azerbaijan, were branded by the World Bank as"the world's top reformers."

Azerbaijan's economics minister Heydar Babayevtold Day.az that the progress "reflected implementation of political will ofAzerbaijan's president." He compared his country's improvement in the rankingto "winning a gold medal at the Olympics."

The Armenian Reporter haslearned from a source in the bank, that the World Bank staff was approached byAzerbaijani officials several months ago with a mandate from the Azerbaijanipresident to do everything necessary to overtake Armenia in the ranking. Armedwith a "to do list" from the bank, the Azerbaijani government then quicklyamended business legislation with little to no public oversight.

Baku officials have long alleged that the "worldwideArmenian lobby" is behind international criticism of Azerbaijan's human rightsviolations and corruption, including its typically poor rankings in variousinternational ratings. Mr. Babayev suggested that this year's Doing Businessstudy was "objective" since the World Bank was "less prone to lobbyinginfluences."

The Doing Business ranking forms part of the  basis for the annual Heritage Foundation - Wall Street Journal economic freedom rankings, and is also counted towardeligibility for U.S. Millennium Challenge aid.