Doing Business in Azerbaijan 2009 - Azerbaijan Export ...

government agency entrusted to exercise overall control in the field
of licensing and to maintain a single register of licenses.
However, the right to issue a specific license is given to respective
state authorities who control the licensed activity (the Ministry of
Transportation, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry
of Economic Development, etc).
Regulations on procedures for the licensing of specific types of
activities are generally issued by the Cabinet of Ministers. An
applicant is required to submit all documents specified in the
regulations and pay the required fee, upon which (subject to the
application meeting all requirements) a license is issued within 15
days. The basic term of most licenses is five years (for production
of alcoholic beverages and ethyl (drinking) alcohol - 3 years, for
import - 1 year). The Azerbaijani licensing system was reformed in
2002. The number of business activities requiring a license was
reduced from more than 200 to 57.
As the result of the reform, the licensing system in Azerbaijan was
liberalized. Licensing differs from the permitting procedure related
to special “hazardous” activities such arm trade or nuclear
materials storage. In Azerbaijani terms this type of permits is called
“special permit”.
A person who wishes to obtain a license to carry out specified
entrepreneurial activity should either create a legal entity or
register as an individual entrepreneur, i.e. become a “sole
proprietor”.
In Annex 3 you may see the list of business activities requiring a
license. No other business activities require special permits as of
the date this publication went to press. The list of documents
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