BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 22. Azerbaijan plans
to register more than 2 million inventory items in a unified
electronic system by the end of the year, Nurlan Soltanov, head of
the Modern Technologies and Innovations Department at the Finance
Ministry's Administrative Office, said, Trend's correspondent reports from the
event.
He made the remarks at a conference on the digital
transformation of public finance held in Baku on Thursday.
Soltanov said work was also underway to improve electronic
contracts, treasury operations and state asset management as part
of the digitalization of public finance.
“Consistent measures are being taken to build a digital state in
Azerbaijan and digitalize public services, procurement, financial
management and forecasting processes. As part of these efforts, the
Digital Public Finance Information System was established by a
relevant decree, and a council was set up to coordinate work in
this area.
“The main goal is not to digitalize individual services
separately, but to bring public finance-related services together
within a unified electronic platform and ecosystem,” Soltanov
said.
He noted that the introduction of electronic accounting
components had begun across government agencies. The process is
based on the Government Resource Planning (GRP) approach, which
covers the planning of public resources. More than 260 government
agencies have received training on the implementation of the
electronic accounting system.
“More than 2 million inventory items are expected to be
registered in the unified system by the end of the year,” he
said.
The department head added that the next stages would involve
establishing a unified registry of state assets and expanding the
use of digital tools in budget forecasting. One of the targets is
to prepare around 60% of the state budget through electronic
forecasting.
Soltanov also highlighted progress in implementing electronic
contracts and treasury operations as part of the digitalization of
public finance. According to him, thousands of contracts have been
signed electronically within a short period, while treasury
payments are now processed on the same day.
He said treasury payments currently take no more than 10 hours
to process. The target is to reduce this period to two hours in the
future. Work has also been carried out to transfer bank guarantees
to an electronic platform.
Addressing the reporting obligations of state-owned companies,
Soltanov said thousands of reports had been submitted through the
reporting portal established for these entities. Reports on
state-owned companies’ budget and dividend forecasts for 2026 have
also been prepared.
According to him, dividend payments to the state budget have
been envisaged for the first time for a number of state-owned
enterprises. This is intended to improve transparency and
accountability in the financial activities of state-owned
companies.
The department head also stressed the importance of integration
with other government agencies in digitalizing public finance. In
this regard, he highlighted the pre-filling of tax returns
introduced by the State Tax Service and the expansion of data
exchange between government agencies as important steps.
He noted that such solutions improve the quality of public
services, reduce the administrative burden on businesses and
minimize the need to submit the same information repeatedly.
Soltanov also identified the development of the Instant Payments
System as a key area of digital transformation. Operated by the
Central Bank of Azerbaijan, the system enables payments to be made
instantly, around the clock, at lower cost. The number and volume
of transactions processed through the system have increased
severalfold.
He emphasized that the next stage would prioritize the
introduction of artificial intelligence solutions into digital
public finance systems, the expansion of analytical capabilities
and improvements to decision-making mechanisms.
“The main goal is not to create separate digital services, but
to build a unified ecosystem that ensures secure data exchange,
automates processes and enables more effective decision-making,” he
said.
