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.