Azernews.Az

By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan focuses on the establishment of strong entrepreneurial base in the country to strengthen private sector's share in the national economy.

The creation of the Entrepreneurship Development Fund is one of the serious steps taken in this direction. The Fund was established under the Ministry of Economy in order to address financial challenges that businessmen face.

The authorized capital of the Fund was set at 1.9 billion manats ($1.1 billion). Loans are issued for 5,000 ($2,933) to 50,000 manats ($29,326) for a period of 3 years, from 50,000 to 1 million manats ($586,510) for 5 years and from 1 million to 10 million ($5.87 million) for 10 years. The annual loan rate is estimated at 5 percent.

The Economy Ministry has said in a message that the Entrepreneurship Development Fund has issued concessional loans worth 50.1 million manats ($29.4 million) since the beginning of 2019.

“In general, 545 entrepreneurs received these loans for the implementation of projects worth 182 million manats ($107 million). The implementation of these projects will open up to 2,000 jobs,” reads the message.

The Fund has issued soft loans totaling 476,000 manats ($279,179) to 28 entrepreneurs of the Mountainous Shirvan economic region. Lending to these projects will create more than 30 new jobs.

The issued loans will be used to implement projects in livestock farming, fish farming, viticulture and other areas, the ministry noted.

In general, for the entire period of the Fund’s activities, entrepreneurs of the Mountainous Shirvan economic region received preferential loans totaling 73.4 million manats ($43 million) for the implementation of 1,969 projects.

The Entrepreneurship Development Fund intends to issue preferential loans worth 160 million manats ($94 million) this year.

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Leman Mammadova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @leman_888

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