Azerbaijan.US
Economist Natig Jafarli has drawn attention to a telling statistic that exposes deeper structural problems in Azerbaijan’s economy: the country has begun importing carnations from abroad, including from Ethiopia.
According to customs data cited by Jafarli, between January and October 2025 Azerbaijan imported 2.72 million carnations worth $188,000. In manat terms, payments for this volume amounted to 319,600 manats, meaning that one carnation entered the country at an average cost of about 12 gapiks.
On the domestic market, however, the same flower is sold five to six times more expensive. While price markups are a separate issue, Jafarli stresses that the core problem lies elsewhere.
During the Soviet period, Azerbaijan was one of the main suppliers of carnations, effectively covering the needs of a union with a population of around 270 million people. Today, the country is importing flowers from Africa – not because of taste or seasonality, but because local production has become economically unviable.
According to the economist, the reason is systemic. The business environment created over the years makes agriculture, cultivation, and small-scale production unprofitable. High costs, administrative pressure, and lack of meaningful incentives have pushed local producers out of the market.
The import of carnations, Jafarli argues, is not a trivial or symbolic issue. It is a clear indicator of the erosion of the domestic production base. When even simple agricultural goods cannot be produced competitively, dependence on imports becomes inevitable.
In this sense, carnations from Ethiopia are not just flowers – they are a reflection of lost capacity, distorted incentives, and an economic model that discourages production in favor of imports.
