Ease of Doing Business in the South Caucasus: Georgia is Still the Pioneer; Armenia has Launched Reforms; and Azerbaijan Has No Improvements

Prepared by Veronica Grigoryan

One of our blog posts was devoted to “Doing Business 2011” report, the results of the South Caucasus. They showed that Armenia and Azerbaijan were far behind Georgia. Particularly, Armenia ranked 44, Azerbaijan 54 and Georgia 17.

After the issue of this report the Prime Minister of Armenia ordered all respective agencies of Armenia to take the necessary steps to improve Armenia's ranking in regards of doing business (read more: http://crrcam.blogspot.com/2010/11/prime-minister-of-armenia-urges-to.html). As a result, in 2012 report Armenia, along with Georgia is among the countries that were the pioneers in improvements in 3 or more areas for the ease of doing business in the country. Armenia is now ranking 55, compared to 61 in 2011. Improvements were made 5 in areas: “Starting a business”, “Dealing with construction permits”, “Getting credit”, “Paying taxes”, and “Resolving insolvency”. Armenia has the best ranking in “Registering property” (rank 3) and the worst in “Enforcing contracts” (rank 19). Overall, Georgia has better rankings compared to its South Caucasus neighbors, with the exception of “Enforcing contracts” (Azerbaijan is doing better, ranking 5).

Azerbaijan has also improved its ranking, ending up with the rank 66 (compared to 69 in the previous year). Unfortunately, there are no improvements in any area of doing business. Azerbaijan has the best rankings in “Registering property” and “Enforcing contracts” (rank 5) and the worst in “Getting electricity” and “Trading across borders” (rank 20).

Georgia is among the top 20 countries that best manage business regulation. Georgia made improvements in 4 areas: “Starting a business “, “Getting credit”, “Protecting investors”, and “Paying taxes” (the same made in Armenia, with the exception of “Resolving insolvency” in Armenia). It is ranking 1 in two areas: “Dealing with construction permit” and “Registering property”.

Like in the previous report, Georgia is the pioneer in the South Caucasus and among the best 20 countries in general. Armenia has made some improvements which resulted in better ranking this year. Azerbaijan improved its ranking slightly, with only one rank, though it has not made any improvement for making it easy to do a business in the country. Hopefully in next year’s report Armenia will continue to improve its ranking and Azerbaijan will start some reforms. As concerning Georgia, hopefully it will stay among top 20 countries with the ease of doing business and will try to move up further.

Comments

Ara Ashjian said…
Wonderful blog. My Congratulations.
http://ara-ashjian.blogspot.com/