Details added (first version posted on 12:22)
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24
By Anvar Mammadov – Trend:
Customers at the first Baku Shopping Festival were refunded the VAT worth 1.8 million manats, Azerbaijani Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfas Garayev said May 24 in Baku at a press conference dedicated to the results of the festival.
The first Baku Shopping Festival was held April 10-May 10, 2017 with organizational support of the Azerbaijan Convention Bureau under the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
“As many as 205 stores became participants of the first Baku Shopping Festival, and 172 of them took part in the VAT refund program,” Garayev said. “As part of the Tax Free system, buyers received 23,242 invoices, the total turnover of which amounted to about 18.17 million manats.”
He added that it is planned to attract up to 500 stores to the next shopping festival to be held in Baku in October 2017.
Garayev said that sales growth was observed in the stores during the festival.
“The stores were offering various discounts within 30-70 percent,” the minister noted. “According to the information received from the festival participants, the volume of sales in stores of premium clothes and accessories increased by 15 percent, in stores of mass-market brand clothes - by 46 percent, and in stores of consumer electronics and household appliances – by three times compared to the volume of sales in April 2016.”