Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan has all the necessary resources to form its own analog of Silicon Valley, said Ali Kutvan, General Director of KoçSistem Azerbaijan.

The country has highly qualified and talented specialists in IT whose innovative ideas and solutions can facilitate the integration of Azerbaijan into the world economy, he said.

“We signed an agreement with the Azerbaijani Qafqaz University for the establishment of the Research and Development Center,” he said.

The center will operate at the University’s High Tech Park, where about 20 specialists will be able to carry out their activities in the field of development and research.

“The creation of such a center is important for Azerbaijan, as the strategic course of the country is aimed at the development of non-oil sector of the economy. I have arrived in Azerbaijan in 2012 as a researcher. Then we conducted economic planning.”

“I should note that at the time, a barrel of oil cost $90-100. We noted the importance of the planned development of non-oil sector of the economy, as the oil sector does not have a long-term development prospects. In a sense, we were right, because today oil is getting cheaper in the world market,” said Kutvan.

That is why, according to the head of KoçSistem Azerbaijan, the development of non-oil sector of the economy is of particular importance, as is the formation of a strategy for competitiveness at the international level.

Azerbaijan has been developing its ICT sector for years and now is one of the leading countries of the region in this regard. Over the past five years, the information technology sector of Azerbaijan has increased two fold.

The country established High Tech Park in the capital Baku, another High Tech Park is under construction in Mingachevir.

The share of computer users to the total population was 67.8 percent in 2014, which is 9.3 percent greater than in 2013.

Currently, the internet penetration rate in Azerbaijan stands at 70 percent. The broadband Internet penetration among the population stands at 50 percent.

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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

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