Soft loans worth $61.78 million issued to local entrepreneurs in Jan-Aug 2019

18 September 2019 11:45 (UTC+04:00)

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By Leman Mammadova

Azerbaijan’s Entrepreneurship Development Fund under the Ministry of Economy continues to provide financial support to the entrepreneurs to realize their investment projects.

Thus, since early 2019, the Entrepreneurship Development Fund has issued soft loans at 105 million manats ($61.78 million) to entrepreneurs for financing of 801 investment projects, Sahib Mammadov, Deputy Economy Minister, has stated. Of these, 97percent accounted for small and medium-sized loans, which was directed for financing small and medium-sized businesses.

The fund issued another batch of soft loans worth 1.2 million manats ($0.71 million) to entrepreneurs operating in Baku’s settlements during a business forum on soft lending to entrepreneurship held in Baku’s Surakhani district on September 17. These loans will be used in the implementation of projects in livestock, horticulture, production of bread, containers and furniture. As part of the forum, a furniture factory granted with soft loan was reviewed. The presentations were held on sample investment projects on the establishment of greenhouse and olive farms, almond gardens and financing of startup to realize the economic potential of the district.

Azerbaijani Entrepreneurship Development Fund was established on the basis of the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support, operating in the country since 1997.

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 of3 years, from 50,000 to 1 million manats ($586,510) for 5 years and from 1million to 10 million ($5.87 million) for 10 years. The annual loan rate is 5percent.

The Fund intends to issue soft loans worth 160 million manats ($94 million) this year. In general, the Fund has issued soft loans in the amount of more than 2.3 billion manats ($1.35 billion) so far. About 68 percent of the loans was directed to the agricultural sector.

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