During the period of March 7- April 17 in the framework of “Azerbaijan Micro-Enterprise Support” project supported by US Agency for International Development (USAID) face-to-face suveys were conducted with 1000 (one thousand) owners of small business entities. The survey was conducted by Small and Medium Enterprises Development Support Centre.
Survey covered 17 administrative regions of Azerbaijan in addition to the cities of Baku, Ganja, Sumgayit. Out of 1000 respondents 9.2% were juridical and 90.8% were physical persons (a person who is engaged in business activity without establishment of legal entity). Distribution of entrepreneurs by the work areas was as following: 1) Trade - 30.0%; 2) Service - 30.0%, 3) Productions - 20.0%; 4) Agriculture - 20.0% (% s are rounded).The survey’s questionnaire form had 47 questions. The questions were related to the current state of business, inspections by the authorities, obtaining licenses, registration of real estate, the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund, tax system and other topics that concerns entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan.
The implementation of the survey, collection of necessary information, development of information obtained of survey through special statistical software (SPSS) and analysis of the survey results were done by highly qualified specialists participated in the process.
According to the answers given by the suvey respondents we can draw the following conclusions:
1. Despite the prior announcement about the anonymity of the survey, we felt that some respondents approached it with degree of caution.
2. According to the results of the inquiry process, 41% of respondents said that there were no serious changes in the business environment during last two years, 32.3% emphasized that environment partially improved and 10.1% said that there were a lot of positive changes in the last two years. At the same time, it should be taken into consideration that, no one among the surveyed entrepreneurs mentioned that their business diminished.
3. As a result of the investigation it was found that Ministry of Taxes pays biggest and Ministry of National Security and regional executive offices pays smallest number of visits to the entrepreneurs for the inspection. A the same time, Police is also among the ones who very often makes inspection visits to the entrepreneurs
4. The poll revealed that a wide range of small business entities apply to the purchase of a license regarding their activities. The results obtained indicate that there are some problems in this area. Thus, 45.1% -151 respondent expressed dissatisfaction with respect to this issue of obtaining licenses (the main difficulties are bureaucracy in the government structures, short-term of the licenses, collection of documents from various government agencies etc.).
5. From the answers of questions related to the real estate registration, we can see that 167 respondent or 35.8% of small businesses who applied, experienced various problems (the main difficulties are bureaucracy in the government structures, collection of documents from various government agencies, ambiguous and unclear laws etc.)
6. In survey owners of small businesses were presented with questions about the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support. Although Fund have been promoting its activities at the regional level last two years, only 18.1% - 181 respondent said that they applied for loan from the Fund, of which approximately two-thirds (61.3% or 111 respondents) was able to receive credit .
7. Regarding the question about changes in existing tax system, owners of small business entities participated in the survey have expressed desire to reduce tax rates the most . At the same time, it became clear that electronic tax paying system is not fully utilized. First of all, it says about little awareness of entrepreneurs about the electronic payment system. We can also assume that that the problems can be associated with the country’s internet and computer coverage
8. 13.4% or 134 respondents have been engaged in foreign trade. 97 people or 48.5% of respondents engaged in foreign trade spoke about the big number documents and complexity of procedures for the foreign trade operations.
9. Only 6.3%, or 64 respondents in the survey said that they needed suspend their operations. 31.7% or 20 of them complained about the number and complexity of procedures.
10. 29.2% or 292 respondents, said that they needed to get permission for carrying out of construction work. Out of the m 35.6% or 104 respondent indicated that it was impossible to get permission without a bribe.
11. At the same time, the respondents noted that they get most information on the legislation from the websites of relevant ministries or television, which could mean that in the future they can be used for strengthening of promotion.
12. From the survey it became clear that only 290 people or 29% are not aware at all about the fact that Azerbaijan is preparing to be a member of World Trade Organization. Other respondents said that they aware of it in this or other way.
Our contact numbers:
Ilkin Garayev – 050-214-2410
Sabit Bagirov – 055-214-0732
July 24, 2013
Appendix:
Results of the survey conducted among 1000 small entrepreneurs
1000 kiçik sahibkarlıq subyekti arasında keçirilmiş sorğu nəticələrinin bəzi dəyərləndirmələri
