Businesses receive soft loans worth about $160 mln manats
By Vusala Abbasova
The National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support under the Economic Development Ministry of Azerbaijan allocated concessional financing of more than 159.7 million manats (over $152.4 million) to roughly 4,200 entrepreneurs.
This statement was made by Shirzad Abdullayev, NFES Executive Director at a business forum in the Agjabedi region of Azerbaijan on October 8, 2015, which was devoted to granting concessional loans to business entities.
The allocation of concessional loans for investment projects could create more than 9,900 new jobs.
Generally, as many as 445 million manats (over $424 million) from the NFES were allocated to finance the invest projects of 11, 400 entrepreneurs of the Aran economic region, Abdullayev added.
The forum was devoted to issuing concessional loans to business entities and was held in Tezekend village of the Agjabedi region with participation of 80 entrepreneurs.
In the framework of the forum, concessional loans in the amount of 824,000 manats (over $786,000) were allocated via authorized credit organizations to 72 business entities.
Following the forum, the participants were familiarized with the specialized pilot grain farming in Agjabedi and Beylagan regions and a milk processing plant and cattle-breeding complex in the village of Agjabedi Agabeyli, both of which were established using NFES funds.
A range of the investment projects has been financed in different regions of Azerbaijan for the first half of the current year.
The financing of agricultural businesses took the largest chunk of concessional loans in Azerbaijan, but helped create 5,618 new jobs.
The NFES, which was established in 1992, spent 65.5 percent of the total volume of concessional financing for the production and the processing of agricultural products for the reported period.
The Fund has also allocated 19.99 million manats (20.6 percent of the total volume of concessional loans) to invest in five projects in the field of service sphere development, which will allow for the opening of 232 new jobs.
Some 57 projects in the field of the production and processing of various industrial products were financed in the amount of 13.3 million manats (13.7 percent of the total volume of concessional loans) over the first half of the year. The implementation of these projects will create 716 new jobs.
The state budget will provide 100 million manats (over $95 million) to the NFES in 2015. Additional funds will come from 130 million manats (over $123 million) worth of loans repaid earlier. Thus, the volume of funds accumulated in the NFES will reach 1.747 billion manats (over $1,664 billion), including state budget allocations totaling 931 million manats (over $887 million) and repaid loans totaling 816.3 million manats (over $777.7 million).
The NFES allocates loans to entrepreneurs via authorized banks and non-bank credit organizations.
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