BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 22. Azerbaijan plans to register more than 2 million inventory items in a unified electronic system by the end of the year, Nurlan Soltanov, head of the Modern Technologies and Innovations Department at the Finance Ministry's Administrative Office, said, Trend's correspondent reports from the event.
He made the remarks at a conference on the digital transformation of public finance held in Baku on Thursday.
Soltanov said work was also underway to improve electronic contracts, treasury operations and state asset management as part of the digitalization of public finance.
“Consistent measures are being taken to build a digital state in Azerbaijan and digitalize public services, procurement, financial management and forecasting processes. As part of these efforts, the Digital Public Finance Information System was established by a relevant decree, and a council was set up to coordinate work in this area.
“The main goal is not to digitalize individual services separately, but to bring public finance-related services together within a unified electronic platform and ecosystem,” Soltanov said.
He noted that the introduction of electronic accounting components had begun across government agencies. The process is based on the Government Resource Planning (GRP) approach, which covers the planning of public resources. More than 260 government agencies have received training on the implementation of the electronic accounting system.
“More than 2 million inventory items are expected to be registered in the unified system by the end of the year,” he said.
The department head added that the next stages would involve establishing a unified registry of state assets and expanding the use of digital tools in budget forecasting. One of the targets is to prepare around 60% of the state budget through electronic forecasting.
Soltanov also highlighted progress in implementing electronic contracts and treasury operations as part of the digitalization of public finance. According to him, thousands of contracts have been signed electronically within a short period, while treasury payments are now processed on the same day.
He said treasury payments currently take no more than 10 hours to process. The target is to reduce this period to two hours in the future. Work has also been carried out to transfer bank guarantees to an electronic platform.
Addressing the reporting obligations of state-owned companies, Soltanov said thousands of reports had been submitted through the reporting portal established for these entities. Reports on state-owned companies’ budget and dividend forecasts for 2026 have also been prepared.
According to him, dividend payments to the state budget have been envisaged for the first time for a number of state-owned enterprises. This is intended to improve transparency and accountability in the financial activities of state-owned companies.
The department head also stressed the importance of integration with other government agencies in digitalizing public finance. In this regard, he highlighted the pre-filling of tax returns introduced by the State Tax Service and the expansion of data exchange between government agencies as important steps.
He noted that such solutions improve the quality of public services, reduce the administrative burden on businesses and minimize the need to submit the same information repeatedly.
Soltanov also identified the development of the Instant Payments System as a key area of digital transformation. Operated by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, the system enables payments to be made instantly, around the clock, at lower cost. The number and volume of transactions processed through the system have increased severalfold.
He emphasized that the next stage would prioritize the introduction of artificial intelligence solutions into digital public finance systems, the expansion of analytical capabilities and improvements to decision-making mechanisms.
“The main goal is not to create separate digital services, but to build a unified ecosystem that ensures secure data exchange, automates processes and enables more effective decision-making,” he said.