Against a backdrop of untapped potential across Europe and Central Asia, the World Bank warned that low-diversity exports and limited foreign investment were stifling productivity, while the UN and other experts painted a cautiously optimistic picture for Azerbaijan’s growth, inflation, and economic resilience in the coming years. The World Bank noted that global economic integration through trade and foreign direct investment offered significant but underutilized opportunities for boosting productivity across Europe and Central Asia (ECA). The Bank emphasized that ECA’s trade structure was not aligned with patterns that would maximize productivity, noting that exports remained insufficiently diversified and skewed toward lower-complexity goods and nearby markets. It stated that this imbalance indicated missed opportunities to improve export quality and expand reach, despite recent shocks that reshaped trade flows, including stronger intraregional trade and "friendshoring," while stressing that the region continued to trade below its potential with the world’s most dynamic markets.

According to the Bank’s estimates, the largest volumes of unrealized trade were concentrated in the resource-based and agricultural economies of Central Asia, where unrealized trade exceeded 55% of potential turnover. It stated that the highest levels were recorded in Turkmenistan at 72%, Tajikistan at 64%, Kyrgyzstan at 63%, and Uzbekistan at 59%, while the figure stood at 58% in Azerbaijan, 56% in Montenegro, and 54% in Albania and Armenia. The share reached 48% in Georgia, 47% in Belarus, 45% in Kazakhstan and North Macedonia, 44% in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moldova, and 36% in Ukraine, Serbia, and Croatia, with lower levels observed in Romania at 28%, Bulgaria at 27%, Türkiye and Russia at 26% each, and Poland at 19%.

"Many countries—particularly resource-dependent and Central Asian agricultural economies—exported less than expected to key partners such as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development members and China, largely because of weak trade logistics and restrictive trade policies," the World Bank stated. It emphasized that much of the unrealized trade lay in manufacturing, limiting the region’s ability to harness growth and innovation, and stressed that exporters, though few, disproportionately contributed to value added, employment, wages, and fixed assets, making them key drivers of productivity and economic performance.

The World Bank stated that foreign direct investment inflows in ECA were often concentrated in a limited number of sectors and insufficiently embedded in domestic economies, noting that the presence of foreign firms had not led to meaningful performance improvements among local suppliers. It emphasized that productivity gains depended on four interconnected pathways, including competitive pressure, firm upgrading, and supportive domestic policies, and stated that continued structural reforms, competition-friendly regulation, flexible labor markets, accessible finance, and investments in education and innovation were essential to realizing these benefits. "To leverage structural transformation, policies should facilitate resource mobility across sectors," the World Bank stated, emphasizing the need to remove distortions that trapped labor and capital in low-productivity activities. It noted that reducing subsidies to declining industries, improving infrastructure links between lagging and dynamic regions, enhancing access to finance for high-performing small and medium enterprises, and phasing out support for failing firms were crucial to enabling efficient resource reallocation.

The Bank further emphasized that maximizing gains from creative destruction required a dynamic business environment with low barriers to entry and orderly exit for inefficient firms. It stated that reducing bureaucratic hurdles for start-ups, reforming insolvency frameworks, strengthening bankruptcy laws, and fostering access to risk capital were vital, while emphasizing that flexible labor markets and retraining policies helped displaced workers transition to expanding firms and maintained public support for trade openness. In addition, the World Bank stated that firm upgrading depended on investments in human capital and technology adoption, emphasizing the importance of research and development incentives, supplier development programs linking domestic firms with multinationals, competitive services markets, and improved trade facilitation. It added that targeted export promotion measures, including assistance in meeting international standards and "meet-the-buyer" initiatives, could help firms access new markets.

The United Nations stated that Azerbaijan’s economic growth reached 1.6% in 2025 and was expected to accelerate to 2.7% in 2026 and 2.6% in 2027, attributing the outlook to higher natural gas production and exports alongside continued expansion of the non-oil and gas sector. The United Nations estimated that inflation in Azerbaijan reached 5.6% in 2025 and forecast it at 4% in 2026 and 3.5% in 2027, while the Ministry of Economy of Azerbaijan projected average annual inflation of 4.8% in 2026 and 4.5% in 2027. The Central Bank of Azerbaijan stated in October 2025 that annual inflation for the current year was expected to be around 5.7%, while ING forecast average inflation at 5.3% in 2026 and 8.9% in 2027, the World Bank projected 2.3% for 2025–2026, and the Asian Development Bank predicted 3.5% inflation in 2026. The Dutch ING Group stated that the Central Bank of Azerbaijan was expected to keep its key interest rate at 6.75% in the first quarter of 2026, while forecasting an increase to 7% in the second quarter, followed by rises to 7.25% in the third quarter and 7.75% in the fourth quarter.