Page 65 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

E.Ahmadov: Azerbaijan from innovative governance to green economy

Our actions today are the seeds we sow that will bear fruits reaped tomorrow‖. For
the country that took the path of sustainable economic development is particularly
important to make constructive use of scarce resources as well as knowledge-based
human potential. Indeed in the recent years Azerbaijan has succeeded to achieve a
competitive economic structure based on information and innovation, improve the
living standards of society, adoption of democratic tradition by society, providing
high-quality employment opportunities through reforms realized in public
administration and economic management during last decade. Policies and
implementations targeted for raising economic welfare of the society inevitably
contribute to all pillars of sustainable development [1, 258]. In this context,
structural problems of the economy were overcome and significant improvements
were achieved in economic indicators such as GDP growth rate, GDP per capita,
borrowing requirement and public finance, inflation, balance of payments and
employment. At present, Azerbaijan provides 100% of its gross energy consumption
through domestic production, which is currently largely reliant on the exploitation of
the country‘s hydrocarbon reserves, namely oil and natural gas. The country does
not depend on foreign resources in the energy sector. Azerbaijan exports oil, natural
gas and electricity. Over the last years, the Republic of Azerbaijan has successfully
identified political development, administrative reform and comprehensive
economic development as national priorities in order to increase economic growth,
alleviate poverty and unemployment. Proof of this Azerbaijan has become a member
of United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC UN).
One of the main indicators that specify the position of any country in the
world community is competitiveness. This comprehensive indicator synthesizes
many aspects of the economy: the quality of products and processes, resource
consumption goods at all stages of their life cycles, image and brand value, business
excellence manufacturers, retail and service organizations, legal certainty, and the
organization, professionalism and efficiency of the public administration.
The indices presented in Figure 1 show that Azerbaijan has a best result
among the CIS and Eastern Europe countries, ranking 38th among 140 countries.

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