Production of biometric passports and issue to citizens was launched in the new administration building of the Baku Regional Centre under the Main Passport, Registration and Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairson the 3rdof September.
Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan Colonel General RamilUsubov took part in the ceremony.
For the purpose of studying and adopting the best world practices in the field of application of new generation biometric ID documents employees of the Main Department took part in various courses, seminars and trainings in Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Estonia, Croatia and other countries. Delivery and installation of appropriate equipment and software to Azerbaijan was provided and passport forms were prepared in accordance with terms and conditions of the agreement signed with Swiss Trub AG Company for the production of new generation passports. At the same time special trainings were conducted for the employees, who will be engaged in services in the field of biometric internal passports production.
Appropriate cabins were placed on the first storey of the new three-storeyed administration building of the Regional Centre for the purpose of electronic queue management. Appropriate conditions were created there for the delivery of various services to citizens. A Pay Point device and ATM were installed for carrying out utility payments, bank credits, fines, cell and home telephone debt repayment, making payments for cable TV and Internet, booking of air tickets and for tens of other operations, and at the same time an Emergency First Response Station and Internet-café were opened.
The hall is designed for simultaneous reception of 24 citizens and 24 citizens waiting for their turn. Over 700 citizens on average will be received throughout a day.
Biometric Instant Photo Booths were placed in the reception hall for making passport photographs as well as the up-to-date fingerprint equipment, PCs with the appropriate software for instant conveyance of data to the database and carrying out special checks, and other technical facilities were installed.  
Preparation and issue of passports is carried out on the 2nd storey of the administration building. There are also special comfortable cabins provided for citizens so that they could verify their personal data specified in passports on electronic storage media (chips) according to the legislation.
Passports will be issued to citizens within 10, 5 or 1 working day depending on the amount of the paid state duty.
It should be also noted that the construction of new administration buildings for 8 regional centres operating in the republic (Nakhchivan, Ganja, Lankaran, Shaki, Guba, Goychay, Barda and Shirvan) was also completed as a result of attention and care on the part of the country's leadership. The issues like improvement of the "Entry/exit and registration" Interdepartmental Automatized Data Retrieval System, creation of operational communication and other crucial points of technical support were also addressed.
Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan Colonel General RamilUsubovpresented new biometric passports to 10 citizens.
Having appreciated the work done, the first holders of biometric passports expressed their gratitude to the country's leadership for favourable conditions created in the new centre as well as for advertence and care paid to them.