BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 21. Azerbaijan needs
to create a National Trade Portal that integrates all legislative
requirements, challenges, market research, and AI-based advisory
services, reads the “Trade Study Report – Trade Sector Development
in Azerbaijan: Policies, Constraints and Opportunities”, issued by
the EU.
The report’s authors point out that exporters obtain the
necessary information about export requirements separately from the
internet resources of various government institutions, regulatory
legal acts databases, and foreign sources, which leads to
additional loss of time and resources.
“The fragmented presentation of available information, changes
in requirements, and their placement across different sources make
it particularly difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to
access foreign markets. In order to address the aforementioned
problem, it would be appropriate to establish a “National Trade
Portal” that would act as a unified information space by bringing
together legislative requirements for exporters, trade procedures,
certification rules and import conditions of foreign markets,
market research, challenges faced by exporters, analytical modules
for increasing exporters’ potential, and artificial
intelligence-based advisory services,” reads the report.
Moreover, the report shows that Azerbaijan still has potential
for improvement in certain areas of the OECD Trade Facilitation
Indicators, particularly in areas such as coordination among border
agencies, the simplification of procedures, and international
cooperation.
“In order to strengthen trade facilitation performance, a
separate action plan could be developed, and measures could be
taken to address identified shortcomings. In this regard, specific
performance indicators (KPIs) could be established for government
institutions, and annual comparative reports could be prepared
comparing Azerbaijan’s performance with OECD and regional countries
to identify and highlight remaining shortcomings,” reads the
report.
