Additional opportunities exist in textiles and food processing. Its location on the Caspian Sea is advantageous for regional exports. There is also a growing domestic market for oil-related production and a domestic consumer goods and food market that will grow as oil revenues create spending power. Weaknesses include low levels of capacity utilization, legal inadequacies and tax and regulatory constraints, a shortage of management skills, a small domestic consumer goods market, outdated technology and a lack of funds for new technologies and equipment, plus a high level of pollution. As first steps toward addressing the environmental situation, Azerbaijan's federal government and the Sumgait local government have shut down Sumgait's worst offending facilities, pending the installation of more efficient processes.
Plans are in place for upgrading and expanding the city's municipal wastewater treatment facilities.
Sumgait has benefited from international assistance, some of it aimed at environmental management and coordinated economic rehabilitation. The World Bank, United Nations, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Islamic Development Bank have all been active in the area, as has the EU's tacis program. An Azerbaijani Federal Committee for Ecology is in place to develop and carry out a coherent environmental policy countrywide, but is currently handicapped by inadequate environmental laws and enforcement.