Iranian Minister: Initial $2 mln to be allocated to startups
By Leman Mammadova
At the beginning of December, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Turkey held a four0sided meeting on regional cooperation in the field of ICT in Baku.
The main topic of discussion was the creation of a consortium to strengthen startups' work and incomes.
Initially, $ 2 million investment was made by four countries to establish the consortium, Iranian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi told Trend.
He noted that the discussions on the joint work in the markets of the four countries are underway for almost a year. This issue was also in the focus of attention at the meetings in Ashgabat and Dubai, according to the Iranian official.
Iran offered such an initiative a year ago, the minister said, adding that over the past year, many discussions were held with the ministers of communication of Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey.
"During a four-party meeting, Iran proposed to establish a working group and become a host of the secretariat. The proposal was supported by the working groups of all four countries. It was decided to sign a final agreement in the second half of January at a meeting in Iran," Jahromi said.
The Iranian minister also noted that they also pointed to two-three issues at the four-party meeting.
"There have been proposals and talks on strengthening cyber security, satellite communications, postal operations between the two countries. At this meeting, more negotiations on startups were held. It was decided that detailed talks should be held in the areas mentioned at the Tehran meeting. We are moving towards establishing joint markets in the ICT field," he said.
Jahromi also called on to produce joint products with the participation of public and private sectors, make joint investments and have joint trainings.
"Let's open our markets to each other, so that we can have a breakthrough in these areas," he added.
At the beginning of December 2018, a roundtable on regional cooperation in ICT sphere between Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Turkey within the framework of XXIV Azerbaijan International Telecommunications, Innovations and Technologies Exhibition BakuTel-2018 was held.
Iran attaches great importance to the regional projects and cooperation with neighbors as a solution to the U.S. sanctions.
Negotiations on Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) project on establishment of fiber-optic highway connecting Europe and Asia were also underway in Baku.
Through this project, the Chinese and European communications will be connected by the north of Iran. The project was initiated by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and High Technologies at the meeting within the 14th "Bakutel" exhibition-conference in Baku in November 2008 by adoption of Baku Declaration. The aim of the project is to establish a transnational fiber optic line from Frankfurt to Hong Kong, from Western Europe to East Asia. This project will eliminate "digital distinction" and open new economic opportunities for landlocked Eurasian countries.
Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran in the field of telecommunications and postal cooperation, intensification of experience exchange, regulation of radio frequencies in the border areas, cyber security, space industry, Iranian use of satellite resources, mobile communications and internet services is on the agenda.
Recently, Azerbaijan and Iran have reached an agreement on the joint production of a satellite probing the Earth.
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