Azerbaijani authorities announce country's exit from EITI

Azerbaijan has officially announced leaving the global standard "Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative" after the EITI Board pronounced the decision to suspend the membership of Azerbaijan. According to experts, the decision to leave the EITI will negatively affect the investment attractiveness of Azerbaijan.

Following the meeting of the International EITI Board held on March 8-9 in Bogotá, the EITI has released a statement for the media. It reports on suspension of the Azerbaijan's membership "because of the inability of the country's authorities to protect civil society."

"Unfortunately, the negative situation which we anticipated still occurred. In connection with the lack of measures taken by the Azerbaijani government to correct the situation, the EITI Board decided to suspend the membership of Azerbaijan," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Gubad Ibadoglu, a member of the International EITI Board.

"I believe that the authorities should draw the right conclusions and urgently fix the situation to restore the country's membership in the EITI. Otherwise, the country faces complete exclusion from the EITI, and that would harm its image, lower the credit and investment ratings of the country and its companies. Unfortunately, in Bogotá, the head of the Azerbaijani government delegation has announced the exit of the country from the organization," said Gubad Ibadoglu.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.