Presentation of the “Extractive Industries Transparency” Portal was held

Presentation of the “Extractive Industries Transparency” Portal was held on October 19, 2021 in the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Tahir Budagov, Chairman of the State Statistical Committee, Parviz Shahbazov, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Rovshan Javadov, Executive Director of the State Oil Fund and Suleyman Gasimov, Vice-president of the State Oil Company made opening speeches at the presentation.

It was mentioned that, being a pilot country in the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Republic of Azerbaijan has always supported international efforts on transparency and accountability in the extractive industries, joined the “Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative” in 2003, and for the first time in the world disclosed the report on the transparency initiative in 2005. The measures taken in our country in ensuring transparency in the extractive industry and providing public services were highly appreciated at international level; the Republic of Azerbaijan was awarded the “State Services Award” of the United Nations and the “2009 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Award”. Furthermore, in recent years, important changes have been made to the international principles and standards that promote accountability for the purpose to increase efficiency of reporting mechanisms and provide its more flexible operating. One of these changes is the gradual integration of reporting into the disclosure and reporting systems through the transformation of reporting into integral part of the activities of the relevant public agencies in order to ensure transparency and regularity of reporting to improve the efficiency of the work carried out in public administration using modern technologies, simplify the possibilities of using data, to provide free access to data. In this regard, according to the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan “On additional measures to increase transparency and accountability in the extractive industries in the Republic of Azerbaijan” dated 28 July 2020, the State Statistical Committee was entrusted to coordinate the reporting on transparency in the extractive industry and the activities of state bodies in this field, ensure continuous collection of extractive industry transparency reports in the Republic of Azerbaijan and provide disclosure of statistical data to the publicity based on the collected reports.

Hereinafter, Yusif Yusifov, Deputy Chairman of the State Statistical Committee informed the participants about the measures taken to collect reports on the extractive industry transparency and to ensure it is open to the public. It was noted that at the initial stage, a system of statistical indicators on transparency was developed in the extractive industry, agreed with the relevant agencies and approved by the Committee, and at the next stage data based on the system of indicators was collected from the relevant government agencies and institutions involved in the extractive industry. In order to deliver the collected data to users through modern technologies, the portal “Extractive Industries Transparency” Portal was developed It was emphasized that the Portal will play the role of a virtual bridge by creating a favorable information environment for the delivery of statistical data in the field of extractive industries to the public,  including government agencies, private sector, scientific and educational institutions, civil society institutions, mass media, regional and international organizations.

Elman Gasimzade, Head of the Department of Industry and construction statistics of the State Statistics Committee presented the Portal.

At the end of the ceremony questions of the participants and media representatives were answered.