For almost six years now, the tale of Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur has been told through the prism of infrastructure: road-building, tunnels, electricity lines, house-building, and countless hectares of mined land being decontaminated. But times are changing, and the tale is evolving into a different genre. This was evident during the Rebuild Garabagh exhibition in Baku last week, when the emphasis was on industries, greenhouses, and export deals. The evolution is intentional, and it represents the moment when the Azerbaijani government asks whether the region can pay for itself.
The magnitude of the first stage is what accounts for the new ambition. As President Ilham Aliyev points out, the state has used 25.5bn manats, equivalent to around $15bn at today’s exchange rates, for reconstruction of villages and towns, restoration of transport, electricity and utilities, and clearance of around 300,000 hectares of land contaminated with mines and ordnance, using its own funds. Some 40,000 people have already returned to 47 settlements, while 100,000 more live and work in the region. This represents quite a commitment by a nation of 10m people.
Official material gives the Finance Ministry's forecast for 2027–30 as 13.2bn manats (some summaries of the medium-term framework say "over 10bn"), enough to keep reconstruction going. But President Aliyev's message to the exhibition was that money alone will no longer set the pace. The aim of the second "Great Return" programme, he said, is "to further increase private investment, expand permanent employment and export-oriented production" and to turn the region into "a new center of economic growth for the country".
The example of the test case is the Aghdam Industrial Park, the project area of which is 190 hectares and the construction of whose infrastructure started back in May 2021. This enterprise is located close to road and railway routes, provides tax, customs, utility, and rental discounts, and operates under a “plug-and-play” principle – the infrastructure is created, investors are attracted. At the halfway point in the year, the industrial park already had more than 30 residents and another four firms that were not residents but operated there and provided around 1,230 jobs. In October, two more enterprises were approved by the economic zones agency – the flour mill and a plant for the production of oil from sunflower, corn, soybean, and cottonseed.
The list of goods is reminiscent of the catalog of the dull and unspectacular center of an industrial economy – electrical distribution equipment, panels for roofs and façades, ventilating and firefighting equipment, metal products, telemetric equipment, construction blocks, furniture, wallpapers, shoes, and cigarettes. This is not a technological cluster. This is something more practical for a country seeking to substitute its imports – light manufacturing that employs many workers and teaches supply chains to work.
In regard to numbers, industrial output in Aghdam district exceeded 1bn manats in 2025, a 17.4-fold increase on 2024; residents of the park sold goods worth 976 mln manats in the first half of 2026 alone, and cumulative sales since launch have reached 1.86bn manats. The 17-times growth comes from a base of about 58 million manats for 2024. The revenue figure does not equal profit and looks slightly out of place amid 180 million manats that the park managed to attract in investments, less than 1 percent of the money allocated by the government to the region as a whole. The private capital comes, yet comes in a rather modest form compared to the public effort.
Beyond Aghdam
Now, the pattern repeats all across the map. In Khankendi, there is a modern Uzbek-built clothing factory called Businesstex that employs over 200 people, while a company making gloves has opened recently. In the Khojaly district, a state-of-the-art brick manufacturing plant has been established, an office furniture workshop functions in Ballicha and a new textile company aims to manufacture 1.4 million products annually. In the Araz Valley Economic Zone, around two dozens of entrepreneurs have registered companies whose investments exceed 140m manats in such diverse sectors as metal structures and adhesive tapes production, and chemical production using natural minerals from the region. This economic zone was designed for logistics activities, including storage facilities, wholesale trade and trucking park for TIR trucks.
The second pillar is agriculture. A 300-hectare greenhouse complex will be constructed in Aghdam district. The specialists of Belarus assist in the construction of a poultry, dairy, and meat complex in Gyzyl Kengerli village. The Azerbaijani-Turkish Dost agropark, which was opened in 2022, created the capacity to keep 3,500 heads of livestock and a feed base in the Zangilan region. In Eastern Zangezur region, in total, 51 enterprises functioned in 2022, which increased by 34.2% compared to the previous year. The foreign partners are involved in all spheres of development. A productive, populated Karabakh is the strongest argument that the territory is permanently integrated into Azerbaijan, and factories in Aghdam are as much statements about the future as pieces of capacity. That is probably why Baku wants the new industrial base to be export-oriented and "green" in design, a branding that suits investors and international audiences alike.
The distinguishing characteristic of the stage is the logic. A territory which has been resettled on a decree must have employment opportunities; it will be inhabited only where there is some kind of job, school and hope of its sustainability. The establishment of industrial parks with infrastructure, concessional loans, loan guarantees and subsidies reduces the expenses of operating in a territory where no investment was ever done before. "The rapidly increasing population of the Agdam Industrial Park and the Araz Valley Economic Zone proves the rapid development of industrial potential of the region," said the minister of economy Mikayil Jabbarov at the exhibition.
What to watch from now on
The coming two years will resolve the queries raised at the time of the exhibition. Whether the park residents can hold their own without the subsidized set-up? Whether the investor would be a company from Baku taking benefit of tax concessions, or one that uses its technology? And will the employment opportunities created be followed up with housing, education and health facilities?
If the answers are favourable, the region will make an unusual transition, from a symbol of war to a working industrial zone. If not, it will remain a handsome, well-funded showcase that depends on the state's purse. For now, 1,230 permanent jobs, a few dozen factories, and a flour mill that has just won residency suggest that Azerbaijan has at least moved from asking "what can we rebuild?" to "what can we make here?"