Azernews.Az

By Trend

It is planned to increase the share of small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan’s GDP to 60 percent by 2025, Orkhan Mammadov, chairman of the board of the Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) of Azerbaijan, said at the high-level forum titled "Diversification of economy – role of private sector" in Baku, Trend reports.

Orkhan Mammadov said that the agency was formed in December 2017 based on the decree signed by President Ilham Aliyev on improving governance in the field of small and medium business in Azerbaijan.

According to him, the agency was created to ensure consistency of reforms, as well as improving the business regulation system and applying effective coordination, enhancing the role and competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses in the country's economy, ensuring small and medium-sized businesses access to financial sources. The goals of the agency also include the creation of favorable conditions for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the regions and the attraction of local and foreign investments to this area.

The chairman noted the creation of support mechanisms and ensuring easy access to these mechanisms among the main tasks of the agency.

Orkhan Mammadov noted that the main principles of the Agency are meeting the needs of entrepreneurs, as well as efficiency, transparency, and taking into account the opinions of entrepreneurs.

According to him, the Agency builds its activities within the framework of the "Strategic roadmap for the production of consumer goods in Azerbaijan at the level of small and medium enterprises" until 2020. Thus, it is planned to improve the environment for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan by 2020 and ensure access to foreign markets.

He noted that the Agency has achieved great success over a short period of time, and a bill was prepared on small and medium-sized businesses. Also, the agency will, as a united structure with special authority, work on organizing, coordinating, evaluating and regulating the services provided by government bodies and organizations in this area through the "SME Houses", as noted by Mammadov.

The forum “Economy Diversification – Role of Private Sector” is being held in Baku on March 6, 2019, attended by representatives of the WB, the CBA, Azerbaijan’s Economy Ministry, the Ministry of Taxes and other government representatives.

Forum participants discuss the fight against informal employment and the shadow economy, ongoing sustainable reforms in the country, expansion of digital payments, the development of small and medium-sized businesses and other issues.

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