Coronavirus countermeasures in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan - General

• Azerbaijan remains one of the relatively less-affected countries by the rapidly spreading coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. The country’s official institutions are applying necessary measures to reduce exposure to and transmission of the novel coronavirus;
• The Azerbaijani Government has extended and further tightened the quarantine measures until 20 April 2020 to combat the coronavirus pandemic;
• All public events, including cultural and sporting events, are either cancelled or postponed;
• All passenger transportation between districts and cities in the country is suspended. Underground public transportation, regular passenger flights and rail transportation from/to Azerbaijan are temporarily suspended;
• People are encouraged to practice social distancing, stay at home and not to leave their homes only in case of emergency;
• The government has announced a financial aid package for individuals and businesses, particularly those heavily affected. The working group set up for this purpose at the initial stage has identified about 12 areas of activity that are most susceptible to negative impact of coronavirus.These spheres are tourism, hotels, food, entertainment, transportation, shopping centers, etc. (384 codes of activities), directly impacted by spreading coronavirus (COVID-19) disease.

  Measures concerning Financial Matters

       Azerbaijan Government will provide loans and guarantees for selected sectors:

• Entrepreneurs get state guarantee for 60 percent of their new bank loans as part of the measures package. The government subsidizes half of the interest on guaranteed loans from the state budget. The overall state support to this direction covers new loans of 500 million manats ($ mln 294.1);
• The Government provides subsidization of 10 percent of the interest payments on existing loans of entrepreneurs as of March 10, 2020 of 1 billion manats ($ mln 588.2) for one year;
• Ceiling of annual interest rates on subsidized loans with maturity of 3 years at the level of 15% maximum shall be applied;
• Volume of subsidized (preferencial) morgage lending will be increased for AZN mln 90;
• Unsecured loans for agriculture with 3 years maturity and annual interest rate of 7-12% up to AZN 15000;

Employment Support Measures

• Financial aid to micro businesses up to AZN 5000 to save job places;
• Exemption from the payments of social deductions for employees of those businesses, that had to close due to imposed measures;
• 2-month salary contributions for the retention of jobs for micro businesses and individual enterprenuers not exceeding average monthly salary of AZN 712.

Support through taxation measures

• Exemption from the payments of land and property taxes;
• Exemption of micro-enterprises from paying simplified tax for a certain period of time;
• Exemption from corporate and simplified taxes in a specific amount and for a specific term; 
• Value-added tax (VAT) exemption for some food and medicinal products, as well as the raw materials that are necessary for making such stuff;
• Postponing of current corporate and property taxes payments;
• Postponing of tax return filing and tax payments for microbusinesses;
• Discounts on taxes from lease payments;
• Temporary freezing of penalty accruals on taxes and social charges;
• Reduction of social charge load for certain businesses.

Support to different branches

• Passenger transport will get financial aid of AZN mln 280.

Miscellaneous

• Rent charges on state buildings, land and industrial zones property will be cancelled until the year end;
• Donation of AZN 190 per month to unemployed people, not using other state support sources will be provided;
• Temporary public hiring to protect unemployed people creating 50000 jobs.