Baku, June 22
AssA-Irada

Deputy heads of foreign companies operating in Azerbaijan will have to be Azerbaijanis from now onward, according to addenda that the parliament is preparing to introduce to the Law on Entrepreneurial Activity, a senior lawmaker says.

Ziyad Samadzada, chairman of the Milli Majlis committee on economic policy, said the envisioned rule applies to companies whose founders are foreign nationals or businesses, as well as subsidiaries or representations of companies with more than 51 percent of foreign-owned shares or capital stock. In addition to that, their appointments are to be agreed with a respective executive body. According to the legislative changes, state registration of such subsidiaries or representations could be carried out only after the candidacies of their deputy heads are agreed.

Another supplement to the entrepreneurship law says that at least 90 percent of staff in foreign companies working in a multitude of fields are to be Azerbaijanis. These sectors of the national economy include agriculture, hunting and forestry, fishing and fish-breeding, extractive and processing industries, power supply, gas and water distribution, construction, sales, repair of vehicles and domestic appliances, hotel administration, restaurant business, transport, communications, finance, real estate transactions, utilities and social sectors.