Azerbaijan offers investors the main thing — predictability and reliability - OPINION
The Second Azerbaijan International Investment Forum (AIIF 2026) in Baku brought together more than 3,000 participants, including 803 delegates from 70 countries, cementing the republic's status as a key center of capital attraction in Eurasia.
Analyst Elmira Talybzade shared her opinion with 1news.az on what factors shape the confidence of global business and why the world's largest structures with a combined portfolio of 30 trillion US dollars choose Azerbaijan for long-term investments:
"In my view, large investors are attracted to Azerbaijan by the combination of stability, reliability of partnership and deep economic opportunities. For business, it is fundamentally important to understand how consistently the state pursues its policy and whether it is ready to fulfill long-term obligations. Since large-scale projects and the major investment funds taking part in our Forum are designed for decades, predictability has direct economic value. Azerbaijan's experience of successful cooperation with international companies in the energy sector, accumulated since the 1990s, lays a solid foundation for the development of partnership in other industries as well.
I will list several key facts:
The first factor is Azerbaijan's reputation as a reliable partner. Its foundation was laid back in 1994 with the signing of the production sharing agreement (PSA), which went down in history as the "Contract of the Century." The precise fulfillment of obligations in 1994–1996 and the subsequent many years of cooperation strengthened the confidence of international companies. For a large investor, the key indicator is the state's ability to honor agreements over decades. The impeccable performance of international and financial obligations makes the country maximally attractive for long-term partnership.
The second factor is macroeconomic and political stability. Large projects require significant investment and are designed for the long term. Investors highly value the predictability of state policy, the sustainability of public finances and the level of debt burden. A low ratio of external public debt to GDP means a minimal burden on the budget and creates additional opportunities for financing key development projects. This strengthens international partners' confidence in the state's absolute ability to fulfill its obligations.
The third factor is the development of public-private partnership (PPP). The PPP law creates a reliable legal basis for attracting private investment and transferring to business the tasks of building and operating key infrastructure. For international companies, this opens up broad opportunities for participation in long-term projects. A clear distribution of risks, rights and obligations between the state and the investor ensures high predictability and mutual benefit of such cooperation.
Azerbaijan today successfully cooperates with leading international players — companies such as Masdar, ACWA Power and BP. They bring with them enormous management experience, advanced technologies and large-scale foreign capital. The state's direct interest in attracting the private sector creates favorable conditions and opens up broad horizons for new investors.
This is already the second international investment forum, and the results of the first are quite telling. Last year, agreements worth more than 10 billion US dollars were concluded, of which over 7 billion were in the non-oil sector. Such a result vividly demonstrates the high level of confidence and the scale of global capital's interest in the development of Azerbaijan's promising industries beyond oil and gas production.
The second indicator of the attractiveness of Azerbaijan's investment climate for these financial giants is geography and transport infrastructure. The Middle Corridor, which connects China and Central Asia with Europe via the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus, passes through Azerbaijan. The North–South route is also developing here. Such a location allows businesses to consider the country as a platform for working with several markets at once. At the same time, geography alone does not yet guarantee competitive advantages. They are created by the port, railways and highways, convenient procedures and predictable delivery times. For an investor, this is a specific question: how much will transportation cost and how reliably will it be organized. And if we take into account all those disruptions in world trade that we are observing today, it is precisely Azerbaijan that can offer business participation in the development of these links, the placement of production and logistics centers next to them.
And the third, no less important indicator, is Baku's ability to build pragmatic and balanced relations with a wide variety of international partners, which gives a key political advantage. Such a flexible foreign economic strategy significantly expands opportunities for large-scale cooperation. At the same time, a sustainable inflow of capital requires continuous improvement of the business environment — and it is precisely this systemic work that has been actively carried out in Azerbaijan in recent years. The combination of political stability, developed infrastructure and transparent rules of the game turns the initial interest of global giants into their long-term presence in the country."
